Accept my heart-felt rejoicings on your preferment, which I consider as providential to myself. Your task was concluded. You had safely piloted my beloved child through his collegiate course; and would have missed your wonted employment, while no other sufficiently _marked_ to occupy your whole time, seemed to detain you henceforward at Glenalta, I dreaded to hear that you must leave me; but wherever duty called you would have followed her voice, and could I have asked you to stay if conscience disapproved the lengthened sojourn? _Now_ you _belong_ to us. All the energies of your admirable nature will be employed where your old friends may still benefit by them. You will continue to be our teacher and friend. You will become our pastor, and be reverenced and beloved by the poor, whose blessings you have so often felt in grateful showers on your head. I have settled in my own mind that you will not possess a comfortable home without inviting your worthy sister and her only child, to share it with you; and if such be your intention, you must permit me to assist in furnishing your dwelling for a lady’s reception. Much as we have been in the habit of looking up to you, I am not _sure_ that we should defer to your taste in such a matter. I write by this post to Dublin, from whence you will receive my “bread and salt,” as the Russians call this species of offering to a new establishment. Oh, my dear friend, how deep is my gratitude to the Almighty giver of good, for the mercies I continually experience! It would have been a great alloy to the happiness of knowing how comfortably you are placed beyond the reach of those sordid cares which depress the spirit, had you owed the independence now conferred, to a stranger. I must have felt _some_ pleasure under _any_ circumstances at your being enabled to continue that character to which your pupils once assigned the appellation of the “good Benefico (_the good giant_),” but your little volatile friend Fanny, said to me a few days ago, and reflected my own feelings as she spoke, “Mamma, there are but two people in the world besides you to whom I cannot _grudge_ the delight of making dear Mr. Oliphant a man of easy fortune; and those two are my uncle and Mr. Otway.” But this theme, all inspiring as it is, must not make me forgetful of your request.