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LETTER TWELVE
57

for her children ever softened into a happy look. Poor dear mother! How good a mother she has been to me! How glad when I have been successful in any little undertaking! How desirous to help me when I have been in any little difficulty! Oh! how happy I have been in that little old home in Moseley-street, after my day's work was done at the brickyard, as I have sat by the fire in my clayey clothes, and she took my hand and held it in her's, and told me parts of Robinson Crusoe to while away the dull hours till you came home from Attsop's. Yes, I was happy then, though dear father was lying in a distant debtor's prison.

Beloved father and mother, I feel as if they were already in their graves. A father and mother bowed down with years of affliction, and steeped in poverty and wretchedness. The very thought seems to make me unhappy for ever, when I know that half the circumference of the globe will shortly lie between us. Farewell, my father and mother, my fond affectionate parents. God Almighty bless them, and provide for their few remaining" years better than I can hope they will be provided for. May they be daily surprised with comforts, and may floods of unexpected joy continually descend into their hearts.