“What a perfect little beauty!” “What splendid eyes!” “What a lovely skin!” “He’s the perfect image of his father!” “He’s exactly like his mother!” “What a dear little nose!” “What fat little hands, full of dimples!” “Let me take him!” “Come to his own grandmamma!” “Let his uncle toss him—­so he will!” “What does he eat?” “Is he tired?” “Now, Fanny! you’ve had him ever since he came; he wants to come to me; I know he does!”

These, and nobody knows how many more exclamations of the sort, greeted the ears of the little stranger, and were received by him with unruffled gravity.

“Aunt Fanny” devoted herself during the following weeks to the care of her little nephew.  Her letters written at the time—­some of them with him in her arms—­are full of his pretty ways; and when, more than a score of years later, he had given his young life to his country and was sleeping in a soldier’s grave, his “sayings and doings” formed the subject of one of her most attractive juvenile books.

A few extracts from her letters will give glimpses of her state of mind during this winter, and show also how the thoughtful spirit, which from the first tempered the excitements of her new experience, was deepened by the loss of very dear friends.

PORTLAND, December 9, 1843.

Last evening I spent at Mrs. H.——­’s with Abby and a crowd of other people.  John Neal told me I had a great bump of love of approbation, and conscientiousness very large, and self-esteem hardly any; and that he hoped whoever had most influence over me would remedy that evil.  He then went on to pay me the most extravagant compliments, and said I could become distinguished in any way I pleased.  Thinks I to myself, “I should like to be the best little wife in the world, and that’s the height of my ambition.”  Don’t imagine now that I believe all he says, for he has been saying just such things to me since I was a dozen years old, and I don’t see as I am any great things yet.  Do you?

Jan. 3d, 1844.—­Sister is still here and will stay with us a month or two yet.  Her husband has gone home to preach and pray himself into contentment without her.  Though he was here only a week, his quiet Christian excellence made us all long to grow better.  It is always the case when he comes, though he rather lives than talks his religion.  I never saw, as far as piety is concerned, a more perfect specimen of a man in his every-day life.

Do you pray for me every night and every morning?  Don’t forget how I comfort myself with thinking that you every day ask for me those graces of the Spirit which I so long for.  Indeed, I have had lately such heavenward yearnings!...  Why do you ask if I pray for you, as if I could love you and help praying for you continually and always.  I have no light sense of the holiness a Christian minister should possess.  I half wish there were no veil upon my heart on this point, that you might see how, from the very first hour of your return from abroad, my interest in you went hand-in-hand with this looking upward.