MY DEAR CHILDREN:

He began to read it aloud: "My DEAR WIFE,I desire to supplement the letter sent to you from the office with this note written in the mine during a minute of waiting.

It cannot be doubted that some are honest and others timorous; and that among the wretches who are most to be suspected of this kind of debauchery, there are some in whom it is not safe to confide; they, therefore, must sometimes be hindered from destroying their reason by other restraints than want of money; and, when they are trusted with the secret of an illegal trade, must pay a dearer rate for the danger that is incurred.

Beyond the sweets of pleasure and of rest, The joys which captivate the vulgar breast; Beyond the dearer ties of kindred blood; Or Brittle life's too transitory good; The sacred charge of liberty they prize, That last, and noblest, present of the skies.

So stood Eliza on the wood-crown'd height, 270 O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the sight, Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife Her dearer self, the partner of her life; From hill to hill the rushing host pursued, And view'd his banner, or believed she view'd.

Feel how I take thy poem And bury within it my face, As I pressed it last night in the heart of a flower, Or deep in a dearer place.

"MY DEAR SIRSIn compliance with your request, I have not any hesitation in affording you any information on the subject of the free system adopted in this island, which my public situation has naturally provided me with.

MY DEAR CHARLES,Here is a war, producing great men, and here am I writing to you from time to time about it and never mentioning one of them.

For now, vague-hovering o'er her form, My fancy sees, by love refined, A warmer and a dearer charm By wedlock's mystic hands intwined, golden coil of wifely cares That years have forged, the loving joy That guards the curly-headed boy Asleep an hour ago up stairs.

"MY DEAR MASTER ROY: "I write to tell you we are safely here and I am quite well as I hope you are.

No dearer joy than this I want; If love is banished from that life There bodyless, my soul would pant, And pine away in hopeless grief, If love be fled away.

It read: "MY DEAR THERESE:

Whate'er thou hadst, no mere delight Was thine the glittering prize to hold; Not thine the form that met thy sight, Replying from the burnished gold; Unmindful what thy hands retained, Thy gaze is fixed beyond, above; Some dearer object held enchained The goddess of immortal love.

Dear friends still toiling in the sun, Ye dearer ones who, gone before, Are watching from the eternal shore The slow work by your hands begun, Rejoice with me!

Never will you dare to pass that sea, for my dearer pleasure; yea, were your courage indeed so great, yet never might you abide my coming.

Some cry and yet are well; some are kild silent; Some kindly runne to helpe their neighbours house, The whilest their own's afire; some save their goods And leave their dearer pledges in the flame; One takes his little sonnes with trembling hands; Tother his house-Gods saves, which could not him; All bann the doer, and with wishes kill Their absent Murderer.

Even the Digger Indians, squatting in the sun beside his door and gazing stolidly at the town and the bay beyond, would sell their soulsfor which the gray-gowned padres prayed ineffectively in the chapel at Dolorestheir wives or their other, dearer possessions for a very little bottle of the stuff that was fast undoing the civilizing work of the Mission.

We bought, at a dearer price than we could have bought gold, two goats which we boiled by turns in a little metal kettle belonging to the Mooresses.

But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this morning.

And filial love could well dispense On earth a dearer recompense, If he its real worth had known, Than full success had made his own.

Three moons ago, at the foot of Vallombrosa, I saw the Appenines flooded with the same silvery gush, and thought also, then, that I had seen the same moon amid far dearer scenes, but never before the same dreamy and sublime glory showered down from her pale orb.

"There is no other land like thee, No dearer shore; Thou art the shelter of the free; The home, the port, of liberty Thou hast been, and shall for ever be, Till time is o'er.

I am sure she will love you none the less for her remembrance of me, and therefore sometimes you will talk together of me, will you not?" "Yes, we will often talk of you, for what dearer theme to both could we choose; what purer recollections could our memories cherish than of the friend we both loved so much, and who so well deserved our love?

But it was a dear conquest, a dearer triumph!

MY DEAR ARCHIE,Thanks for your good wishes.