And now I must bring my letter to a close, or you will be tired. The children all send love to grandmamma and Aunt Elizabeth: and (it is Miss Nelly calls out this) to little brother Arthur. Nelly is growing prettier every day: she is now going on for eleven. Young Richard promises to be as tall and fine a man as his father. I believe he is to be sent home next year to the school attached to King's College in London. Little Allan is more delicate than I like to see him; Bobby, a frightful Turk; baby, a dear little fellow. Master Allan's godfather, Eleanor's husband, gave him a handsome present on his last birthday--a railway train that would "go." He had sent for it from England: I am sure it never cost less than five pounds; and the naughty child broke it before the day was out. I felt so vexed; and downright ashamed to confess it to Eleanor. The Ayah said he broke it for the purpose, "to see what it was made of;" and, in spite of entreaties to the contrary, Richard was on the point of whipping him for the mischief, and Allan was roaring in anticipation, when Mary interposed, and begged to be let deal with him for it. What she said, or what she did, I don't know, I'm sure there was no whipping; but Master Allan was in a penitential and subdued mood for days after it, voluntarily renouncing some pudding that he is uncommonly fond of, because he had "not been good." Richard says that he would rather trust his children to Mary, to be made what they ought to be, than to any one under heaven. Oh, it is grievous--that her life should have been blighted! My best love to you and Elizabeth, dearest mother, in which Richard begs to join; and believe me, your affectionate daughter, SUSAN LAYNE. P.S.--I have never before written openly on these private matters: we have been content tacitly to ignore them to each other, but somehow my pen has run on incautiously. Please, therefore, to burn this letter when you and Elizabeth shall have read it.[1] [1] But old Mrs. Layne did not burn the letter: or else it would never have found its way into Duffham's collection. She was content to put it off from day to day just as people do put things off; and it was never done.--J.L. [_From Miss Mary Layne's Journal, about two years yet later._] _October 9th._--I quite tremble at the untoward turn things seem to be taking. To think that a noble gentleman should be casting his thoughts on _me_! And he _is_ a gentleman, and a noble one also, in spite of that vain young adjutant, St. George's, slighting remark when Mr. McAlpin came in last night--"Here's that confounded old warehouseman!" It was well the major did not hear him. He has to take St. George to task on occasion, and he would have done it then with a will.