question, and all the leisure time I could command I spent in teaching my children.  Nathan was slow at learning, but it did beat all, how smart Lucinda was at her book.  I could never tell how she learned her letters; I may say she picked them up herself, and with a very little assistance was soon able to read.  Other settlers came among us from time to time, and bye-and-bye we had both a school and a meeting-house.  I tell you, Walter, when I now sit at the door, and look around me over the beautiful farms, with their orchards and smooth meadow-lands, and further away the gleaming spire of the village church, and hear the sharp shriek of the locomotive (I believe they call it) and call to mind the log-hut in the depth of the forest, which was, my first home on this farm, I am lost in wonder at the changes which have taken place, and I cannot help repeating the words, ’old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.’  Your grandfather lived to a good old age, and, when infirmities obliged him to resign the care of the farm to our boy Nathan he enjoyed the fruits of his former industry in the comforts of a home of plenty, and the care and attention of our dutiful children.  As for me I do not now look forward to a single day.  I have already outlived the period of natural life and feel willing to depart whenever an all-wise Providence sees fit to remove me; but I would not be impatient and would say from my very heart:  ’All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change comes.’  And now, Walter, read to me, for it is past my usual time of retiring to rest.”  As I closed the book (after reading for half an hour) Grandma said, “I have read myself, and heard others read the Bible these many years, yet each time I listen to a chapter, I discover in it some new beauty which I had never noticed before.  Truly the Bible is a wonderful book; it teaches us both how to live and how to die.”

CHAPTER XX.

“I wish you would go over to the post office, Nathan,” said my aunt one evening in the latter part of winter; “none of us have been over to Fulton this week, and who knows but there may be letters,” “Who knows indeed!” replied Uncle Nathan, “I am as you say a careless mortal, and never inquired for letters the last time I was over, so I’ll just harness up and drive over this clear moonlight evening.”  He returned in an hour’s time and soon after entering the house, handed a letter to my aunt saying, “read that and see what you think of it.”  Seating herself and adjusting her glasses, she unfolded the letter, and perused it carefully; but any one acquainted with her would at once have been aware, by the expression of her countenance, as she read, that the communication, whatever it was, was not of an agreeable nature.  The letter was from a cousin residing in the State of Massachusetts whom they had not seen for many years, but who used in his youthful days to be a frequent visitor.