MORWENSTOW, May 21, 1867. _My dear Mr. Martyn_,—Just as I was about to write to you on other matters, your advertisement for the letting of your lands reached me. It is not, of course, my duty to express any opinion between landlord and tenant, or to give utterance to my sympathy with any one candidate over another; yet there is a matter on which I am sure you will forgive me if I venture to touch. It is on the tenancy of your farm of Ruxmoore by Cann. He has been my churchwarden during the whole of his last term. He and his have been the most faithful adherents to the church of their baptism in my whole parish; and he has been to me so sincere and attached a friend in his station of life, that he without Ruxmoore, or Ruxmoore without the Canns, would be to me an utterly inconceivable regret. It was I who first introduced him to the choice of your family, twenty-eight years agone; and throughout the whole of that time he has been, in his humble way, entirely faithful to me and to you. I do not imagine that you intend to exclude him from your farm, but I venture to hope that you will put me in possession confidentially of your wishes in regard to his future tenancy. Do you mean that he shall tender as before? and does your valuation of his part of your land ascend? He is not aware that I write to you hereon; and, if you are disinclined to answer my questions, I hope you will allow me to record my hearty hope and trust that you will give him the preference over other new and local candidates, in or out of Morwenstow. I have firm confidence in the justice and mercy of your heart. But you must not infer that Cann alone of all your tenants is, or has been, the object of my special regard.... In Wellcombe, B——, whom you remember, no doubt, by name, is one of my regular communicants. And now the very kind and generous sympathy which Mrs. Martyn and yourself have shown towards my school demands a detail of our success. The children on the day-school books amount to sixty-three. The inspectors (diocesan) pronounce it to be the most satisfactory school in their district. I always visit and instruct the children in person once a week. Mrs. Hawker has had a singing class of boys and girls weekly at the vicarage. But this duty and the harmonium in church are now undertaken by Mrs. T——, for a reason that will readily suggest itself to your mind. But why should I hesitate to avow to old friends that we expect another guest at the vicarage? How I hope that God may grant us a boy, that I may utter the words of the fathers of holy time, “My son, my son!”