but quiet in
her talk with them, and gentle in assertion and reply. She is for ever
talking of her father and his campaigns, who came out of them all with
no very severe wounds to hurt him; and so she hopes and trusts will her
eldest son.

George writes frequent letters home to his brother, and, now the army
is on its march, compiles a rough journal, which he forwards as occasion
serves. This document is perused with great delight and eagerness by
the youth to whom it is addressed, and more than once read out in family
council, on the long summer nights, as Madam Esmond sits upright at her
tea-table--(she never condescends to use the back of a chair)--as
little Fanny Mountain is busy with her sewing, as Mr. Dempster and Mrs.
Mountain sit over their cards, as the hushed old servants of the house
move about silently in the gloaming, and listen to the words of the
young master. Hearken to Harry Warrington reading out his brother's
letter! As we look at the slim characters on the yellow page, fondly
kept and put aside, we can almost fancy him alive who wrote and who read
it--and yet, lo! they are as if they never had been; their portraits
faint images in frames of tarnished gold. Were they real once, or are
they mere phantasms? Did they live and die once? Did they love each
other as true brothers, and loyal gentlemen? Can we hear their voices
in the past? Sure I know Harry's, and yonder he sits in the warm summer
evening, and reads his young brother's simple story:

"It must be owned that the provinces are acting scurvily by his Majesty
King George II., and his representative here is in a flame of fury.
Virginia is bad enough, and poor Maryland not much better, but
Pennsylvania is worst of all. We pray them to send us troops from home
to fight the French; and we promise to maintain the troops when they
come. We not only don't keep our promise, and make scarce any provision
for our defenders, but our people insist upon the most exorbitant prices
for their cattle and stores, and actually cheat the soldiers who are
come to fight their battles. No wonder the General swears, and the
troops are sulky. The delays have been endless. Owing to the failure
of the several provinces to provide their promised stores and means of
locomotion, weeks and months have elapsed, during which time, no doubt,
the French have been strengthening themselves on our frontier and in the
forts they have turned us out of. Though there never will be any