“Willie was almost heartbroken, when he heard your letter, which he had given to me to read to him, without a suspicion of its contents. He went immediately, without prompting from any one, and wrote this answer. I am glad to see that he makes no attempt to excuse himself, and I rejoice that the ‘expression’ came so soon to your knowledge. He will never forget the lesson. I know he is not in the habit of using such expressions, and cannot account for his having written it. I think he does not quarrel at all with Henry. You will think from Henry’s letter to Juliet, that he is suffering from homesickness, but he seems perfectly happy. His mother’s letter made him long to see you all and he wrote to Juliet immediately. He and Bertie are very happy together and he is getting on nicely now with all the boys. At first he used to get himself into trouble constantly by calling them names, and treating them as I suppose he had been treated by village boys in Newtown. I presume it was that which made Willie write of him as he did, as he was very much annoyed by it. I have heard nothing of it for some days past, and conclude that he has discovered the way to live happily and pleasantly with the other boys. He is a dear little fellow and always good to us, obedient and cheerful. In haste, yours sincerely, “A. J. GUNN.” In a letter written a week later he comes back to the subject in the same tone of grief and honest penitence; and he gives another glimpse at his real nature. For when a boy tells you what he thinks about after he has gone to bed at night, he has taken you very much into his confidence. “WASHINGTON, CONN., _Dec. 15, 1863_. “DEAR MOTHER: “You can’t realize how sorry I feel for that great misconduct that happened about a week ago and I want to be forgiven. Will you forgive me this time. “Christmas is now near at hand and I have concluded to stay here and I suppose you had rather have me to. Mrs. Gunn has just got through reading ‘Eric or little by little’ and the boys were delighted with it only they didn’t like to have the ‘hero’ of the story die. They expected to have it turn out that he would be a great man: But it didn’t. You know that he died on hearing that his Mother was very sick and might die. It ended up very sad and scarcely a boy ceased to cry. It is a beautiful book and impressed several things on the hearts of some of our boys and I realy believe it has done them some good and if it hasn’t done them any I think it has me. Often in bed I think of ‘Eric’ and hope that I will never do some of the bad things he did; but, on the other hand if I turn out to be as good a boy as he turned out to be I will be satisfied and I guess you will to.”