No, there never was such a Mother! Her openness of mind shows itself in a hundred extracts. “I do not fairly know Thomas à Kempis,” she says. “The passage you quoted was very grand and beautiful.” “I wonder if you will care for my extract from Pusey in the ‘Times’. I always think there is such a chastened, disciplined spirit in what he writes,—no pepper, nor vinegar.” “If I were obliged to have a great deal of company, I should, I doubt not, feel ‘Lent’ a grand repose and comfort; as it is, I am disposed to kick at it as artificial.” And she is no longer afraid to express her loving appreciation. “I don’t call you so much a ‘sweet-tempered’ as an ‘excellent-natured’ girl,—most unselfish, energetic, and at all times ready in the behalf of others. A regular ‘_sweet_ temper’ is rarely found with very strong deep feelings.... I don’t think there ever was such true love as your’s—unless it be her’s under disguise. You would not now be able to stand alone as you do had circumstances not separated you. God has two great works,—one for her, one for you.” “I am quite sure, by pouring out your heart to me, you help me on as well as yourself. You bring before me such strengthening texts and poetry, and our hearts get so very closely knit. It may seem selfish to say so, but your sorrows have greatly enhanced my joys by bringing us close, and, as it were, entwining us inseparably.” In a fine sermon on _Old and Young_, the late Bishop of Oxford dwells on the “tragedy going on in the life of many a home, ... as father and son or mother and daughter grow conscious, sometimes with silent pain, and sometimes with scarcely veiled resentment, of an ever-widening severance, a perpetual and almost irrevocable ebbing of sympathy and trust.” If any further proof were needed than has already been given of the wholeheartedness with which this mother and daughter resisted that tendency to severance and realized the sympathy and trust, it may be found in the correspondence that follows: “Jan. 23rd, 1863. Friday night. and Jan. 24th. MY OWN DARLING MOTHER,—I’m right sorry you didn’t get your baby’s first morning greeting,—I went out on purpose to post the letter on Friday that you might. It’s very tiresome too that the other little messenger didn’t reach you,—however Mother knows it was sent, and it’s useless to risk sending more the same way; you shall get it in duplicate when I come home,—whenever that is.