Miss Mary Byles related to me, that on one occasion she had given to a hungry British soldier a piece of cold pork that had been left from dinner. A few evenings after, the same man knocked at the door, and requested to see one of the ladies—Miss Mary presented herself, and the grateful soldier slipped into her hand a paper containing a small quantity of the herb called by the whigs of that time “the detested tea;” and which it was then scarcely possible to obtain on any terms. * * * * * Several years elapsed before I again was in Boston. In the interim, I heard something of the Miss Byleses from ladies who knew and visited them. I understood that, at length, they had found it impossible to prevent what they had so long dreaded, the opening of a street that would take in their little green lawn, their old horse-chesnut trees, and that part of their house that stood directly across the way. For this surrender of their property, they received from the city an ample compensation in money; also their house was made as good or rather better than ever besides being new roofed and thoroughly repaired. The despoiled sisters, though another and more comfortable residence was offered to them during the time of their destruction, as they termed it, steadily persisted in remaining on their own domain during the whole process of its dismemberment. Their house, as they said, was cut in half; that part which faced the end of Tremont street being taken away. They mourned over the departure of every beam and plank as if each was an old friend—and so they truly were. And deep indeed was the affliction of the aged sisters when they saw, falling beneath the remorseless axe, their noble horse-chesnut trees whose scattered branches, as they lay on the grass, the old ladies declared, seemed to them like the dismembered limbs of children. At this juncture, their grief and indignation reached its climax; and they excited much sympathy even among professed utilitarians. There were many indulgent hearts in Boston that felt as if the improvement of this part of the city might yet have been delayed for a few short years, till after these venerable and harmless females should have closed their eyes for ever upon all that could attach them to this side of the grave. And that even if the march of public spirit should in consequence have allowed itself to pause a little longer in this part of its road, “neither heaven nor earth would have grieved at the mercy.”