The omission of a letter, or the addition of a letter, may each effectually do its work in keeping out of sight the true character and origin of a word. Thus the omission of a letter. When the first syllable of ‘bran-new’ was spelt ‘bran_d_’ with a final ‘d’, ‘bran_d_-new’, how vigorous an image did the word contain. The ‘brand’ is the fire, and ‘brand-new’ equivalent to ‘fire-new’ (Shakespeare), is that which is fresh and bright, as being newly come from the forge and fire. As now spelt, ‘bran-new’ conveys to us no image at all. Again, you have the word ‘scrip’--as a ‘scrip’ of paper, government ‘scrip’. Is this the same word with the Saxon ‘scrip’, a wallet, having in some strange manner obtained these meanings so different and so remote? Have we here only two different applications of one and the same word, or two homonyms, wholly different words, though spelt alike? We have only to note the way in which the first of these ‘scrips’ used to be written, namely with a final ‘t’, not ‘scrip’ but ‘scrip_t_’, and we are at once able to answer the question. This ‘script’ is a Latin, as the other is an Anglo-Saxon, word, and meant at first simply a _written_ (scripta) piece of paper--a circumstance which since the omission of the final ‘t’ may easily escape our knowledge. ‘Afraid’ was spelt much better in old times with the double ‘ff’, than with the single ‘f’ as now. It was then clear that it was not another form of ‘afeared’, but wholly separate from it, the participle of the verb ‘to affray’, ‘affrayer’, or, as it is now written, ‘effrayer’{247}. {Sidenote: ‘_Whole_’, ‘_Hale_’, ‘_Heal_’}