With a tremulous hand, and a gesture of fretful impatience, she threw them from her one after the other. The topics and the tone alike jarred upon her nerves. They seemed so unfeeling, too, and so heartless at such a moment. Oh, if we wanted to moralize over the uncertainty of life, what a theme might we have in the simple fact that, quicker than the lines we are writing fall from our pen, are oftentimes changing the whole fate and fortune of him for whom we destine them! We are telling of hope where despair has already entered,--we are speaking joy to a house of mourning! But one letter alone remained unopened. It was in Repton's hand, and she broke the seal, wondering how he, who of all men hated writing, should have turned a correspondent. The “strictly confidential” of the cover was repeated within; but the hour had come when she could violate the caution, and she read on. The first few lines were a half-jesting allusion to Martin's croakings about his health; but even these had a forced, constrained air, and none of the jocular ease of the old man's manner. “And yet,” continued he, “it is exactly about your health I am most anxious. I want you to be strong and stout, body and mind, ready for action, and resolute. I know the tone and style that an absentee loves and even requires to be addressed in. He wants to be told that, however he may be personally regretted, matters go on wonderfully well in his absence, that rent is paid, farms improved, good markets abound, and the county a pattern of quietness. I could tell you all this, Martin, and not a syllable of it be true. The rents are not paid, partly from a season of great pressure, but, more still, from an expectancy on the side of the people that something--they know not what--is coming. The Relief Bill only relieved those who wanted to job in politics and make market of their opinions; the masses it has scarcely touched. They are told they are emancipated, but I am at a loss to know in what way they realize to their minds the new privilege. Their leaders have seen this. Shrewd fellows as they are, they have guessed what disappointment must inevitably ensue when the long-promised boon can show nothing as its results but certain noisy mob-orators made Parliament men; and so they have slyly hinted,--as yet it is only a hint,--'this is but the first step--an instalment they call it--of a large debt, every fraction of which must yet be paid!'