as irrelevant. Then,
in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, tho their
great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an
especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L----,
because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the
rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like
some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get,
when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half
over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any
out; and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too
much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries; and how
their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to
the admiration of everybody, but of the great-grandmother Field most
especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a
lame-footed boy--for he was a good bit older than me--many a mile when
I could not walk for pain; and how, in after-life, he became
lame-footed too, and I did not always, I fear, make allowances enough
for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently
how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how,
when he died, tho he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had
died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and
death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first,
but afterward it haunted and haunted me; and tho I did not cry or take
it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had
died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I
had loved him.

I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to
be alive again, to be quarreling with him--for we quarreled
sometimes--rather than not have him again; and was as uneasy without
him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off
his limb. Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little
mourning which they had on was not for Uncle John; and they looked up
and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some
stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how, for seven
long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting
ever, I courted the fair Alice W--n; and, as much as children could
understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and
denial meant in maidens; when suddenly turning to Alice,