ways
and oddities. A letter from Mrs. Haughton generally somewhat fretted and
irritated Lionel's high-strung nerves, and he had instinctively put
off the task of reading the one he held, till satisfied hunger and
cool-breathing shadows, and rest from the dusty road, had lent their
soothing aid to his undeveloped philosophy.

He broke the seal slowly; another letter was enclosed within. At
the first few words his countenance changed; he uttered a slight
exclamation, read on eagerly; then, before concluding his mother's
epistle, hastily tore open that which it had contained, ran his eye over
its contents, and, dropping both letters on the turf below, rested his
face on his hand in agitated thought. Thus ran his mother's letter:

MY DEAR BOY,--How could you! Do it slyly!! Unknown to your own mother!!
I could not believe it of you!!!! Take advantage of my confidence
in showing you the letters of your father's cousin, to write to
himself--clandestinely!--you, who I thought had such an open character,
and who ought to appreciate mine. Every one who knows me says I am a
woman in ten thousand,--not for beauty and talent (though I have had my
admirers for them too), but for GOODNESS I As a wife and mother, I may
say I have been exemplary. I had sore trials with the dear captain--and
IMMENSE temptations. But he said on his death-bed, "Jessica, you are
an angel." And I have had offers since,--IMMENSE offers,--but I devoted
myself to my child, as you know. And what I have put up with, letting
the first floor, nobody can tell; and only a widow's pension,--going
before a magistrate to get it paid! And to think my own child, for whom
I have borne so much, should behave so cruelly to me! Clandestine! that
is that which stabs me. Mrs. Inman found me crying, and said, "What is
the matter?--you who are such an angel, crying like a baby!" And I could
not help saying, "'T is the serpent's tooth, Mrs. L" What you wrote
to your benefactor (and I had hoped patron) I don't care to guess;
something very rude and imprudent it must be, judging by the few lines
he addressed to me. I don't mind copying them for you to read. All my
acts are aboveboard, as often and often Captain H. used to say, "Your
heart is in a glass case, Jessica;" and so it is! but my son keeps his
under lock and key.

"Madam [this is what he writes to me], your son has thought fit to
infringe the condition upon which I agreed to assist you on his behalf.
I enclose a reply to