I am sensible that _this last_ we are apt
to exaggerate after a person's death--and surely, in the main, there
was considerable harmony among the members of our little
family--still I was concerned to think that we ever gave her gentle
spirit disquiet.

"I thought on years back--on all my parents' friends--the H----s, the
F----s, on D---- S----, and on many a merry evening, in the fireside
circle, in that comfortable back parlor--it is never used now.--

"O ye _Matravises_[1] of the age, ye know not what ye lose in
despising these petty topics of endeared remembrance, associated
circumstances of past times;--ye know not the throbbings of the
heart, tender yet affectionately familiar, which accompany the dear
and honored names of _father_ or of _mother_.

[Footnote 1: This name will be explained presently.]

"Maria! I thought on all these things; my heart ached at the review
of them--it yet aches, while I write this--but I am never so
satisfied with my train of thoughts, as when they run upon these
subjects--the tears they draw from us, meliorate and soften the
heart, and keep fresh within us that memory of dear friends dead,
which alone can fit us for a readmission to their society hereafter."

FROM ANOTHER LETTER.

"----I had a bad dream this morning--that Allan was dead--and who, of
all persons in the world do you think, put on mourning for him?
Why--_Matravis_. This alone might cure me of superstitious thoughts,
if I were inclined to them; for why should Matravis _mourn_ for us,
or our family?--Still it was pleasant to awake, and find it but a
dream.--Methinks something like an awaking from an ill dream shall
the Resurrection from the Dead be.--Materially different from our
accustomed scenes, and ways of life, the _World to come_ may possibly
not be--still it is represented to us under the notion of a _Rest_, a
_Sabbath_, a state of bliss."

FROM ANOTHER LETTER.

"----Methinks, you and I should have been born under the same roof,
sucked the same milk, conned the same horn-book, thumbed the same
Testament, together:--for we have been more than sisters, Maria!

"Something will still be whispering to me, that I shall one day be
inmate of the same dwelling with my cousin, partaker with her in all
the delights which spring from mutual good offices, kind words,
attentions in sickness and in health,--conversation, sometimes
innocently trivial, and at others profitably serious;--books read and
commented on, t