"We hav had heavy ranes all ye week last past. Sech wether can but serve to hinderr M.'s recovery. The fysichion at G., wear I tooke her, saies she shou'd hav much fresh aire everry day—if not afoot, to be carrid in a chaire or cotche; but in this wether, and in a plaice wear neeither chaire nor cotche can be had, she must needs stop in doors. I hav begg'd her to lett me carry her to G., but she will not, and says in ye summerr she will be as strong as everr. I pray God she may be so. Butt theire are times whenn my harte is sore and heavy; and the rane beeting agenst the winder semes lik dropps of cold worter falling uponn my pore aking harte. If you cou'd stele a visitt you wou'd see wether she semes worse than whenn you sor her last ortumm; she is trieing ye tansy tea; and beggs her service to you, and greatfull thanks for y'r rememberence of her. I dare to say you here splended acounts of my doins in London—at cok fites and theaters, dansing at Vorxhall, and beeting ye wotch in Covin Garden. Does my F. stil use to speke harsh agenst me, or has he ni forgott their is sech a creetur living? If he has so, I hope you wil kepe him in sech forgetfullnesse,—and obliage,

"Yr loving brother and obediant servent."

"MATHEW HAYGARTH."

To me this letter is almost conclusive evidence of a marriage. Who can this little M. be, of whom he writes so tenderly, except a child? Who can this woman be, whose ill health causes him such anxiety, unless a wife? Of no one but a wife could he write so freely to his sister. The place to which he asks her to "steal a visit" must needs be a home to which a man could invite his sister. I fancy it is thus made very clear that at this period Matthew Haygarth was secretly married and living at Spotswold, where his wife and son were afterwards buried, and whence the body of the son was ultimately removed to Dewsdale to be laid in that grave which the father felt would soon be his own resting-place. That allusion to the Ullerton talk of London roisterings indicates that Matthew's father believed him to be squandering the paternal substance in the metropolis at the very time when the young man was leading a simple domestic life within fifty miles of the paternal abode. No man could do such a thing in these days of rapid locomotion, when every creature is more or less peripatetic; but in that benighted century the distance from Ullerton to Spotswold constituted a day's journey. That Matthew was living in one place while he was supposed to be in another is made sufficiently clear by several passages in his letters, all more or less in the strain of the following:—