ll placed and to his liking he seems
in this congenial library, presiding and sympathizing. But my dear
madam, ten thousand books, "about ten thousand books," do you say
this library contains? My dear Mrs. Ticknor! Then I am afraid you
must have double rows--and that is a plague. But you may ask why do
I conceive you have double rows? Because I cannot conceive how else
the book-cases could hold the ten thousand. Your library is 34 by
22, you say. But to be sure you have not given me the height, and
that height may make out room enough. Pray have it measured for me,
that I may drive this odious notion of _double rows_ out of my
head--"and what a head," you may say, "that must be that could
calculate in such a place and at such a time!" It was not my poor
head, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, but Captain Beaufort's
ultra-accurate head. I gave him through Honora the description of
your library, and he (jealous, I am clear, for the magnitude and
number of his own library and volumes) set to work at 22 by
34--and there I leave him--till I have _the height_ to confound him
completely. You see, my dear friends, that you need not again ask
me _to go_ to see you--for I have seen and I know everything about
your home; full as well I know Boston and your home as you know
ours at Edgeworthstown. It is your turn now to come and see us
again. But I am afraid to invite you, lest you should be
disenchanted, and we should lose the delightful gratification we
enjoy in your glamor of friendship. Aunt Mary, however, is really
all you think and saw her, and in her ninety-first year still a
proof as you describe her--and a remarkable proof--of the power of
mind over time, suffering and infirmities; and an example of
Christian virtues making old age lovely and interesting.

Your prayer, that she might have health and strength to enjoy the
gathering of friends round her, has been granted. Honora and her
husband, and Fanny and her husband, have all been with us this
summer for months; and we have enjoyed ourselves as much as your
kind heart could wish. Especially "_that beautiful specimen of a
highly-cultivated gentlewoman_" as you so well called Mrs. E., has
been blest with the sight of all her children round her, all her
living daughters and their husbands, and her gr