"Dear Mrs. _Patty_, I am writing as small as ever I can, and must write still smaller, if I mean to get in Half of what I want to say. Imagine what a happy Evening we had! My dear _Mother_ shed many Tears, though, when she heard of your Kindness to me throughout my Illness; and desired me to express her Thankfulness to you all in the strongest Terms I could frame. My Ten Pounds proved very acceptable, as it made up, with her Savings, just the Sum she wants to bind _Joe_ to our Village Doctor. _Penelope_ is learning to make Bone-Lace; and Mrs. _Evans_ is so well content with _Lucy_, that she is going to take her as second Teacher in her School next Quarter, so that we are all getting on mighty well, one Way and another. Also my _Mother_ has realized a pretty little Sum by the Sale of some of my _Father's Latin_ Books, and there are yet more left. Your delicious Plum-Cake was done ample Justice to, and the Boys declare there never were such Gingerbread-Nuts. Now I have filled my Paper to the very Edge, and yet how much I have left unsaid! Put yourself in my Place, and you will know all I would say to you, and to dear Mrs. _Honeywood_, and to _Prue_; not forgetting Mr. _Honeywood_, to whom give my kind Regards." "Your ever attached and grateful "GERTRUDE BOWERBANK." My _Father_, who was smoking his Pipe whilst I read this Letter to him and my _Mother_, presently said, "I see them all!" "See who, _Father_?" "Everybody in Mrs. _Gatty's_ Letter--The old Woman with her Pipe, the old Gentleman in his Roquelaure, the Robber hung in Chains on the lone Heath, the Highwaymen, the stout old _Squire_ leaping out with his Blunderbuss, my Lord _Duke_ coming up, the Police-Officers riding into the Yard, the young Farmer coming to meet his Father, _Gatty_ flying up to her _Mother_--that Letter is as full of Pictures as this _Chinese_ Paper." After ruminating on it a While longer, he began again, with: "_Gatty_ ought to marry the _Squire_." "Oh _Father_! his _Son_, if you please!" "How do you know the Son is a single Man?" "Nay, how do we know the Squire is a Widower? He's too old." "Perhaps she won't marry either," said _Prue_. "Perhaps not, Mrs. _Prue_, but let me tell you, neither you nor your Sister could have writ that Letter." "Well, _Father_, I suppose a Woman does not get married for writing a Letter. For my Part, I don't see much in it. Anybody, I suppose, could write, if they had Anything to write about." "No, that don't follow--it's a _non sequitur_, as the Scholars say." "I don't set up for a Scholar, not I," said _Prue_, "I never was so good a Hand at my Pen as _Patty_; but I worked the best Sampler, for all that." "Well," says my _Father_, "say, when you write to her, _Patty_, that I don't care how often I pay a Shilling for such a Voice from the Basket as that. I wish she'd send us one every Week."