and re-read; read to me every night before prayers were said, read to
Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Loveday, read (in extracts) to all the
neighbours of Polkimbra, for none knew certainly why Ezekiel had gone
to India except that, somewhat vaguely, it was to "better hisself."
How many times my mother read it, and kissed it, and cried over it,
God alone knows; I only know that her step, which had been failing of
late, grew firmer, and she went about the house with a light in her
face like "the face of an angel," as the vicar said. It may have
been: I have never since seen its like upon earth.

After this came the great joy of sending an answer, which I wrote
(with infinite pains as to the capital letters) at my mother's
dictation. And then it was read over and corrected, and added to,
and finally directed, as my father had instructed us, to "Mr. Ezekiel
Trenoweth; care of John P. Eversleigh, Esq., of the East India
Company's Service, Colombo, Ceylon." I remember that my mother
sealed it with the red cornelian Ezekiel had given her when he asked
her to be his wife, and took it with her own hands to Penzance to
post, having, for the occasion, harnessed old Pleasure in the cart
for the first time since we had been alone.

Then we had to wait again, and the little store of money grew small
indeed. But Aunt Elizabeth was a wonderful contriver, and tender of
heart besides, although in most things to be called a "hard" woman.
She had married, during my grandfather's long absence, Dr. Loveday,
of Lizard Town--a mild little man with a prodigious vanity in brass
buttons, and the most terrific religious beliefs, which did not in
the least alter his natural sweetness of temper. My aunt and uncle
(it was impossible to think of them except in this order) would often
drive or walk over to Lantrig, seldom without some little present,