What a world of content or of unhappiness lies within the little fold of a letter! Hark! There is the postman's ring at the door, sharp, quick, imperative; as much as to say, 'Don't, keep me standing here; I'm in a hurry.' How your heart beats! It has come at length--the long-expected letter; an answer to a proposal of marriage, perhaps; a reply to an urgent inquiry concerning a matter of business; information with regard to some near and dear relative; a bulletin from the field of battle; what the heart sighs for, hopes for--fears, yet welcomes--desires, yet dreads. You seize the letter. Has it a black seal? Yes? The blood leaves your cheeks and rushes to its citadel, frozen with fear, and in your ear sounds the knell of a departed joy. No? Then you heave a long sigh of relief, and gaze for a moment at the missive, wondering from whom it can be. Your doubts are soon resolved, and you rest satisfied or you are disappointed. Recall the emotions which you have experienced in opening and reading many a letter, and you will acknowledge that fate and fortune often announce their happiest or sternest decrees through a little sheet of folded paper. Have you not thought so, wife, when came the long looked-for, long hoped-for, long prayed-for--with so many sighs and tears, such throbbing, and such sinking of the heart--letter from your husband, telling the fruition of his schemes, and the prospect of his speedy return? Have you not thought so, mother, when your son's letter came, assuring you that your early teachings had been blessed to him; and, though perchance surrounded by the temptations of a great city or a great camp, he had found that 'peace which passeth understanding?' Have you not thought so, O happy damsel--yes! that blush tells how deeply--when _his_ letter came at last, that letter which told you you were beloved, and that all his future felicity depended upon your reply? And that soft reply--how covered with kisses, how worn in that pocket of the coat in which it can feel the beatings of the precordial region! And not of you alone, ye refined and accomplished lovers--but of swains and sweethearts are the letters dear. Nothing more prized than such epistles, commencing with: 'This comes to inform you that I am well, saving a bad cold, and hope you enjoy the same blessing,' and ending: 'My pen is poor, my ink is pale, My love for you shall never fail.' Assuredly, if there can be unalloyed happiness in this world, it appertains to those dear and distant friends, parted from one another by intervening ocean or continent, at those moments of mental communion which are vouchsafed by long and loving letters. Ah, how would the bands of friendship weaken and drop apart if it were not for them! They brighten the links of our social affections; they freshen the verdure of kind thoughts; they are like the morning dew and the evening rain to filial, conjugal, fraternal, paternal and parental love!