‘I think I am old enough to write to you from myself, being no longer a child: for it seems so very hard not to know you, or to understand why it is that I have not seen you for such a long, long time. People change very much in such a time; it is said that even your body changes, and, still more, your mind, which is always undergoing developments, and learning more and having more experiences. Dear mother, I am not now a little boy. I have finished my education. Mr. Cattley thinks I have gone as far as I need try to do, as I am not to proceed seriously with my studies, and now it has been settled that I am to begin to learn the profession of an engineer. I had my choice between that and going into an office, and I chose that. I hope you will be interested in hearing all this. Mothers are generally so, and it is hard upon me--Please do think so!--not to know whether you care, or if you will be pleased. Mother, I am writing now to ask you something--something that is very much in my mind. I do want you to come here. Consider that I don’t know you at all. It is not natural. I feel almost as if it were wrong not to know my mother. But it is not my fault; and there are poor grandfather and grandmamma whom you have given up too. They are your parents just as you are mine, and it is dreadful that we should never meet. Mother, please don’t think I am saying more than I ought to say; but do come--oh, do come. I do not feel that I can go on longer as I have gone on all these years, knowing nothing about myself, or about you. You must see, if you will think, that it is very, very hard upon me, especially now when I am old enough to think for myself. ‘I am, dear mother, ‘Your affectionate son, ‘JOHN SANDFORD.’