aces as I looked upon them, and I thought it was, perhaps, the
reflection of the prayers which their mother, I well knew, was pouring
out for them at that hour. That was on a Tuesday, and as the distance
was nearly sixty miles, I could not hear of her safe arrival till the
return of Master George, which could not be till the following Monday;
not being minded, (for he was a devout man, and had imbibed his father's
likings in his youth, which was a champion for the late Man,) and would
rather have done a murder on a Thursday than have travelled on the
Sabbath-day. "Better break heads," he was used to say, "than break the
Sabbath." I did always find him, the father I mean, a sour hand at a
bargain; and when he was used to drive me hard upon his tithes and
agistments, I could fancy he took me for one of the Amalekites, or one
of the Egyptians, whom he thought it a meritorious Christian deed to
spoil. The Monday came at last, and Master George Sprowles, before he
rode to his own home, trotted his horse up our church avenue, and
delivered into my hands a packet of writing carefully sealed with a
seal, whereof the device was a true-love knot. Great was my delight and
great my anxiety to read what was written therein, and all that evening
I pored over the manuscript, on which she had bestowed great pains, and
crossed all the t's without missing one. But it is never an easy task to
decipher a woman's meaning, particularly when not addicted to
penmanship; and although my excellent wife had attended a penman's
instructions, and had acquired the reputation, in her native place, of
being an accomplished clerk, still, since her marriage, she had applied
her genius to the making of tarts and other confections, rather than to
the parts of scholarship, and it was difficult for me to make out the
significance of her epistle in its whole extent. Howbeit, it was a
wonderful effort of calligraphy, considering she had only had two days
wherein to compose and write it, and she had been so little used to this
manner of communication, and it consisted of three whole sides of a
large sheet of paper. She said therein that Mr Snowton was a father unto
her in his affection and urbanity, and that he highly approved the
motion for us to make provision of the meat that perishes, seeing it is
indispensable for young children and also for adults; and that he had
already bethought him of a way wherein he might be serviceable to
us--viz. in procuring for m