ber, it tallies with the last letter he fixed up for me.
Something about 'grey old walls' there was, too."

"Yes, that comes two sentences below--

"Confronted with these evidences of decay, the visitor instinctively
exclaims to himself, 'If these grey old walls could speak, what a
tale might they not unfold!'--"

"So he've put that in again? There's what you might call a sameness about
Benny, though he _do_ write different to anybody else."

"And here are more dates, and an epitaph from one of the tombstones in the
churchyard! Indeed, Mr."--

"Salt. Tobias Salt--_and_ by natur'."

"Indeed, Mr. Salt, I can't write a letter like this. To begin with, I
haven't the knowledge."

"The Lord forbid!"

"But I suppose your wife likes to read about these things?"

"She can't read a word, bless you. She gets the parson to spell it out to
her, or the seamen's missionary. Yarmouth our home is."

"She likes to hear about them, then?"

"What? Sarah? Lord love ye, miss, you should see the woman!"
Mr. Salt chuckled heavily, and wound up by sending a squirt of
tobacco-juice out into darkness. "Mother of eight children, she is, and
makes 'em toe the mark at school and Sunday school. A woman like that
don't bother about grey old walls."

"You are proud of her, I see."

"Ought to be, I reckon. Why, to-day she can pick up two three-gallon
pitchers o' water and heft 'em along for a mile and more without turning a
hair."

"And the children? How old are they?"

"Eldest just turned eleven."

"Why, then he must be able to read?"

"'Tisn't a he, 'tis a her. Ay, I reckon 'Melia Jane should read well
before this."

Hester took a fresh sheet of paper and began to write.

"Listen to this, please," she said after a few sentences, "and tell me if
it will do--"

"Dear Wife,--This comes hoping to find you in health, as it leaves me
at present, and the children hearty. I am sending this from Troy,
and I daresay you will take it to some friend to read; but tell
Amelia Jane, with my love, that in future she shall read her father's
letters to you. She must be getting a scholar by this time; and if
there's anything she can't explain, why you can take it to a friend
afterwards. We reached this port last Tuesday (the 14th) after a
good passage--"

"Now tell me about your passage, please."

At first Mr. Salt could only tell her that the passage had been a good
one,