"
This I could hardly do, so I changed the conversation, after reassuring
him as best I could.
CHAPTER XXV
Three or four years after the birth of her daughter, Christina had had
one more child. She had never been strong since she married, and had a
presentiment that she should not survive this last confinement. She
accordingly wrote the following letter, which was to be given, as she
endorsed upon it, to her sons when Ernest was sixteen years old. It
reached him on his mother's death many years later, for it was the baby
who died now, and not Christina. It was found among papers which she had
repeatedly and carefully arranged, with the seal already broken. This, I
am afraid, shows that Christina had read it and thought it too creditable
to be destroyed when the occasion that had called it forth had gone by.
It is as follows--
"BATTERSBY, March 15th, 1841.
"My Two Dear Boys,--When this is put into your hands will you try to
bring to mind the mother whom you lost in your childhood, and whom, I
fear, you will almost have forgotten? You, Ernest, will remember her
best, for you are past five years old, and the many, many times that
she has taught you your prayers and hymns and sums and told you
stories, and our happy Sunday evenings will not quite have passed from
your mind, and you, Joey, though only four, will perhaps recollect
some of these things.
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