ch he took a letter, which he opened and read. It was
written in a delicate, though hardly formed female hand, and crossed like
a checker-board, as is usual with these redundant manuscripts. The
letter was as follows:

OXBOW VILLAGE, June 13, 1859.

MY DEAREST CLEMENT,--You was so good to write me such a sweet little bit
of a letter,--only, dear, you never seem to be in quite so good spirits
as you used to be. I wish your Susie was with you to cheer you up; but
no, she must be patient, and you must be patient too, for you are so
ambitious! I have heard you say so many times that nobody could be a
great artist without passing years and years at work, and growing pale
and lean with thinking so hard. You won't grow pale and lean, I hope;
for I do so love to see that pretty color in your cheeks you have always
had ever since I have known you; and besides, I do not believe you will
have to work so very hard to do something great,--you have so much
genius, and people of genius do such beautiful things with so little
trouble. You remember those beautiful lines out of our newspaper I sent
you? Well, Mr. Hopkins told me he wrote those lines in one evening
without stopping! I wish you could see Mr. Hopkins,--he is a very
talented person. I cut out this little piece about him from the paper on
purpose to show you,--for genius loves genius,--and you would like to
hear him read his own poetry,--he reads it beautifully. Please send this
piece from the paper back, as I want to put it in my scrapbook, under his
autograph:--

"Our young townsman, Mr. Gifted Hopkins, has proved himself worthy of the
name he bears. His poetical effusions are equally creditable to his head
and his heart, displaying the highest order of genius and powers of
imagination and fancy hardly second to any writer of the age. He is
destined to make a great sensation in the world of letters."

Mrs. Hopkins is the same good soul she always was. She is very proud of
her son, as is natural, and keeps a copy of everything he writes. I
believe she cries over them every time she reads them. You don't know
how I take to little Sossy and Minthy, those two twins I have written to
you about before. Poor little creatures,--what a cruel thing it was in
their father and mother not to take care of them! What do you think? Old
bachelor Gridley lets them come up into his room, and builds forts and
castles for them with his big books! "The world's coming to an en