“I have written this story with great reluctance, but my heart was almost breaking from so long repressing its emotions.  You are still boys.  Try, then, while it is in your power, to make those who love you happy, instead of laying up years of remorse and misery by selfish indulgence of your own wishes, at the expense of their comfort and peace.  Read now the book which I have so lately learned to prize, and you will not have to look back upon the grave of a father whom you never honored, and the counsels of a mother so long despised.”

Poor Dick!  Although he was so unkind, do you not feel very sorry for him, Bennie?  I long so to hear of his meeting with his sister, that I am really impatient to return.  David did not say much after reading this story, but I know he thinks a great deal about it.  Yesterday he said to me,—­“Did you ever know, Pidgie, that girls were so tender-hearted?  I think I must often have hurt my little sister’s feelings.  She is a good little thing, and, though not quite so pretty as that picture of Louisa Colman, yet a very fair-looking girl in her way.”

I suppose this long letter will not go till I have a chance of writing another, all about myself; but if it does, you ca imagine that I am spending my time pretty much as I have described before; and believe me still your affectionate cousin,

Pidgie.

LETTER VIII.

David’s glimpse of Nobility.

From Pidgie to Bennie.

Schooner Go-Ahead, August 16th, 1846.

You will see by the date, dear Bennie, that more than two weeks have passed since I last wrote to you.  In the mean time your poor cousin Pidgie has been lying on his straw-bed, sick with a fever.  It has been rather gloomy, to be sure; but now that I am better I can think of nothing but the kindness of the sailors.  It must be the salt water which keeps their hearts so good and warm, for when any one is in real trouble they are as tender as little children.  There were two or three of them, whom I had not even thought worth mentioning, that spent every moment, when they were not busy, in trying to amuse me.  One had been to China, and you don’t know how many curious things he had seen there.  He tells me that there is a Chinese museum in Boston, and when I go back there I shall visit it, and I will try and remember every thing worthy of notice to tell you on my return.  How many pleasant evenings we shall spend together, in the old school-room at Bellisle, with all the girls sitting by the long window, or near us out on the porch!

I love the sea, and yet I long to take a stroll down the lawn before your door on the sweet green grass.  It is a blessed thing that travelling of any kind has so much to interest, or else how would any one ever be able to make up his mind to leave home?