What the "good" was by which my "fortune was assured" I am unable to guess. But I am sure of the sincerity of the writer's rejoicing thereat. Mary Mitford was a genuinely warm-hearted woman, and much of her talk would probably be stigmatised by the young gentlemen of the present generation, who consider the moral temperature of a fish to be "good form," as "gush." How old Landor, who "gushed" from cradle to grave, would have massacred and rended in his wrath such talkers! Mary Mitford's "gush" was sincere at all events. But there is a "hall-mark," for those who can decipher it, "without which none is genuine." A considerable intimacy grew up between my mother and the author of _Highways and Byeways_ during the latter part of his residence in England, and subsequently, when returning from Boston on leave, he visited Florence and Rome. Many letters passed between them after his establishment as British Consul at Boston, some characteristic selections from which will, I doubt not, be acceptable to many readers. The following was written on the envelope enclosing a very long letter from Mrs. Grattan, and was written, I think, in 1840:-- * * * * * "I cannot avoid squeezing in a few words more just as the ship is on the point of sailing or steaming away for England ... 'The President' has been a fatal title this spring. Poor Harrison, a good and honest man, died in a month after he was elected, and this fine ship, about which we have been at this side of the Atlantic so painfully excited ever since March, is, I fear, gone down with its gallant captain (Roberts, with whom we crossed the Atlantic in the _British Queen_) and poor Power, whom the public cannot afford to lose. "Since I wrote my letter three days ago--pardon the boldly original topic--the weather has mended considerably. Tell Tom that every tree is also striving to turn over a new leaf, and it is well for you that I have not another to turn too. God bless you. "T.C.G." * * * * * I beg to observe that the exhortation addressed to me had no moral significance, but was the writer's characteristic mode of exciting me to new scribblements. The following, also written on the envelope enclosing a letter from Mrs. Grattan, is dated the 30th of July, 1840:-- * * * * *