e, a pair of bright eyes, and a head
as smooth as ivory, on which there was not a single hair. His sleeves
were looped up with corals, and showed his plump white arms, and he sat
up very straight, and took a good look at everybody.

"What a perfect little beauty!" "What _splendid_ eyes!" "What a lovely
skin!" "He's the perfect image of his father!" "He's _exactly_ like his
mother!" "What a dear little nose!" "What fat little hands, full of
dimples!" "Let _me_ take him!" "Come to his own grandmamma!" "Let his
uncle toss him--so he will!" "What does he eat?" "Is he tired?" "Now,
_Fanny!_ you've had him ever since he came; he wants to come to me; I
know he does!"

These, and nobody knows how many more exclamations of the sort, greeted
the ears of the little stranger, and were received by him with unruffled
gravity.

"Aunt Fanny" devoted herself during the following weeks to the care of
her little nephew. Her letters written at the time--some of them with
him in her arms--are full of his pretty ways; and when, more than a
score of years later, he had given his young life to his country and
was sleeping in a soldier's grave, his "sayings and doings" formed the
subject of one of her most attractive juvenile books.

A few extracts from her letters will give glimpses of her state of mind
during this winter, and show also how the thoughtful spirit, which from
the first tempered the excitements of her new experience, was deepened
by the loss of very dear friends.

PORTLAND, _December 9, 1843._

Last evening I spent at Mrs. H.----'s with Abby and a crowd of other
people. John Neal told me I had a great bump of love of approbation, and
conscientiousness very large, and self-esteem hardly any; and that he
hoped whoever had most influence over me would remedy that evil. He then
went on to pay me the most extravagant compliments, and said I could
become distinguished in any way I pleased. Thinks I to myself, "I should
like to be the best little wife in the world, and that's the height of
my ambition." Don't imagine now that I believe all he says, for he has
been saying just such things to me since I was a dozen years old, and I
don't see as I am any great things yet. Do you?

_Jan. 3d, 1844._--Sister is still here and will stay with us a month
or two yet. Her husband has gone home to preach and pray himself into
contentment without her. Though he was here only a week, his quiet
Christian excellence made us all long to grow bet