Some of them I wrote myself.

"Dear aunt, may I ask your attention to a few lines ?" &c.

"Dear aunt, I was reading last night, and I chanced on the following passage," &c.

Other letters were written for me by my valued fellow-workers, the sisterhood at the Mothers'-Small-Clothes.
"Dear madam, pardon the interest taken in you by a true, though humble, friend." "Dear madam, may a serious person surprise you by saying a few cheering words ?" Using these and other similar forms of courteous appeal, we reintroduced all my precious passages under a form which not even the doctor's watchful materialism could suspect.

Before the shades of evening had closed around us, I had a dozen awakening letters for my aunt, instead of a dozen awakening books.