Luckily, he kept it a day, and, rereading it in a cooler moment was shocked at its tone, destroyed it, and wrote another.

But the second one was no less hard, only more courteous, than the first.

It ran thus:-- "MERCY,--I am sorry that any thing in my last letter should have led you to suppose that under the existing circumstances you could control my actions.

All I said was that I might, for the sake of your peace of mind, give up this money, if it were not for my obligations to my mother.

It was a foolish thing to say, since those obligations could not be done away with.