This would generally lead to recollections of the house which Mary now called, with a sigh, “my dear old home,” and of all the Prescotts, “the girls,” and dashing Percy, and “kind old John.” The children had all heard of Cousin John: how his eyeglass was always dropping from his eye (so well known was this trait in the family that little Johnny had got into the trick of it, and would stick a piece of paste-board in his little eye, which when it fell always produced a laugh), and his light moustache drooping at the corners, and his lisp, and how he said “Write to me,” if anything was ever wanted. “And did you ever write to him, mamma?” the children would cry. And then Mary would explain that she had never written so often as she ought, and impress the lesson upon them always to keep on writing when they might happen to be away, or they were sure to be sorry for it afterwards. “But did you write when you wanted anything?” said Janey, the second daughter, who was very inquisitive. “No, of course mother didn’t. As if we were going to take things from relations, like the Browns!” cried Harry, with a flush of scorn. Harry was a very proud boy, who suffered by reason of the short sleeves of his jacket and the short legs of his trousers, as none of the rest did. Mary shook her head at this, and said there was nothing wrong in taking things from relations when they were kind. “But I never did,” she said. “Sometimes I have thought I ought to have done it; but I never did. He married, and I never heard anything of him afterwards, and _she_ was a stranger to me. It was that chiefly that kept me back. I have not heard anything of him for about a dozen years. And whether he has sold Horton, or what has become of it, I don’t know. It is such a wrong thing not to write,” she said, returning to her moral; “be sure you always keep up the habit of writing whenever you go away.”