st we had to fear was, that he would
insist on forcing it at once into the market, at what would be a great
loss to us, and leave us almost destitute. He was going to be married,
and getting into business, and wanted beyond anything else a little
ready money.

He scarcely knew us even by sight. He had been a sprightly, pretty boy;
and my mother's aunt's husband, having no children of his own, offered
to adopt him. Poor mamma's heart was almost broken; but I suppose
George's noise must have been very trying to my father's nerves; and
then he had no way to provide for him. After she objected, I have always
understood that my father appeared to take a morbid aversion to the
child, and could scarcely bear him in his sight. So George seemed likely
to be still more unhappy, and ruined beside, if she kept him at home. He
was a little fellow then, not more than five years old; but he cried for
her so long that my great-uncle-in-law was very careful how he let him
have anything to do with her again, till he had forgotten her; and
little things taken so early must be expected to fall, sooner or later,
more or less under the influence of those who have them in charge.

Poor mamma died without making a regular will. It was not the custom at
that time for women to be taught so much about business even as they are
now. She thought, if she did make a will before she could pay off the
debt on the house, she should have to make another afterwards, and that
then there would be double lawyers' fees to deduct from the little she
would have to leave us. After she found out that she was dangerously
sick, she was very anxious to make her will, whenever she was in her
right mind; but that went and came so, that the Doctor, and a lawyer
whom he brought to see her, said that no disposition she might make
could stand in court, if any effort were made to break it. All that
could be done was to take down, as she was able to dictate it, an
affectionate and touching letter to George.

In this she begged him to remember how much greater his advantages, and
his opportunities of making a living, were than ours, and besought him
to do his best to keep and increase for us the pittance she had toiled
so hard to earn, and to take nothing from it unless a time should come
when he was as helpless as we.

Two copies of this letter were made, signed, sealed, and witnessed. One
I sent to George, enclosed with an earnest entreaty from Fanny and
myself, that h