In less than a month you and I shall, I trust, be rambling over the Common, which now looks quite beautiful.
I am ever, my dear Tom, Your affectionate mother, SELINA MACAULAY.
The commencement of the second half-year at school, perhaps the darkest season of a boy's existence, was marked by an unusually severe and prolonged attack of home-sickness.

It would be cruel to insert the first letter written after the return to Shelford from the summer holidays.
That which follows it is melancholy enough.
Shelford: August 14.

1813.
My dear Mama,--I must confess that I have been a little disappointed at not receiving a letter from home to-day.

I hope, however, for one to-morrow.

My spirits are far more depressed by leaving home than they were last half-year.