Yet this woman could barely read and did not learn to write until her
firstborn had gone away from the home nest. Then it was that she
sharpened a gray goose-quill and labored long and patiently, practising
with this instrument (said to be mightier than the sword) and with ink
she herself had mixed--all that she might write a letter to her boy; and
how sweetly, tenderly homely, and loving are these letters as we read
them today!

James Carlyle with his own hands built, in Seventeen Hundred Ninety, this
house at Ecclefechan. The same year he married an excellent woman, a
second cousin, by name Janet Carlyle. She lived but a year. The poor
husband was heartbroken, and declared, as many men under like conditions
had done before and have done since, that his sorrow was inconsolable.
And he vowed that he would walk through life and down to his death alone.

But it is a matter for congratulation that he broke his vow.

In two years he married Margaret Aitken--a serving-woman. She bore nine
children. Thomas was the eldest and the only one who proved recreant to
the religious faith of his fathers.

One of the brothers moved to Shiawassee County, Michigan, where I had the
pleasure of calling on him, some years ago. A hard-headed man, he was:
sensible, earnest, honest, with a stubby beard and a rich brogue. He held
the office of school trustee, also that of pound-master, and I was told
that he served his township loyally and well.

This worthy man looked with small favor on the literary pretensions of
his brother Tammas, and twice wrote him long letters expostulating with