Chapter VIII (1)

THE PASTOR'S WIFE AND DAUGHTER OF CONSOLATION.

1866-1868.

I.

Happiness as a Pastor's Wife. Visits to Newport and Williamstown Letters. The great Portland Fire. First Summer at Dorset. The new Parsonage occupied. Second Summer at Dorset. _Little Lou's Sayings and Doings_. Project of a Cottage. Letters. _The Little Preacher_. Illness and Death of Mrs. Edward Payson and of Little Francis.

We now enter upon the most interesting and happiest period of Mrs. Prentiss's experience as a pastor's wife. The congregation of the Church of the Covenant had been slowly forming in "troublous times"; it was composed of congenial elements, being of one heart and one mind; some of the most cultivated families and family-circles in New York belonged to it; and Mrs. Prentiss was much beloved in them all. What a help-meet she was to her husband and with what zeal and delight she fulfilled her office, especially that of a daughter of consolation, among his people, will soon appear.

How ignorant we often are, at the time, of the turning-points in our life! We inquire for a summer boarding-place and decide upon it without any thought beyond the few weeks for which it was engaged; and yet, perhaps, our whole earthly future or that of those most dear to us, is to be vitally affected by this seemingly trifling decision. So it happened to Mrs. Prentiss in 1866. Early in May her husband and his brother-in-law, Dr. Stearns, went, at a venture, to Dorset, Vt., and there secured rooms for their families during the summer. But little did either she, or they, dream that Dorset was to be henceforth her summer home and her resting-place in death! [1]

The Portland fire, to which reference is made in the following letters, occurred on the 4th of July, and consumed a large portion of the city.

_To Miss Mary B. Shipman, Dorset, July 25, 1866._

Never in my life did I live through such a spring and early summer as this! As to business and bustle, I mean. You must have given me up as a lost case! But I have thought of you every day and longed to hear how you were getting on, and whether you lived through that dreadful weather. Annie went with the children to Williamstown about the middle of June; I nearly killed myself with getting them ready to go and could see the flesh drop off my bones. George and I went to Newport on what Mrs. Bronson called our "bridal trip," and stayed eleven days. Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy were kindness personified. We came home and preached on the first Sunday in July, and then went to Greenfield Hill to spend the Fourth with Mrs. Bronson. [2] That nearly finished me, and then I went to Williamstown on that hot Friday and was quite finished on reaching there, to hear about the fire in Portland. Did you ever hear of anything so dreadful? I did not know for several days but H. and C. were burnt out of house and home; most of my other friends I knew were, and can there be any calamity like being left naked, hungry and homeless, everything gone forever.... But let no one say a word that has a roof over his head. All my father's sermons were burned, the house where most of us were born, his church, etc. Fancy New Haven stripped of its shade-trees, and you can form some idea of the loss of Portland in that respect. Well, I might go on talking forever, and not have said anything. [3] The heat upset G. and we have been fighting off sickness for a week, I getting wild with loss of sleep. We are enchanted with Dorset. We are so near the woods and mountains that we go every day and spend hours wandering about among them. If there is any difference, I think this place even more beautiful than Williamstown; it suits us better as a summer retreat, from its great seclusion. I am, that is we are, mean enough to want to keep it as quiet and secluded as it is now, by not letting people know how nice it is; a very few fashionably dressed people would just spoil it for us. So keep our counsel, you dear child.

A few days later she writes to Mrs. Smith, then in Europe:

On the sixth, a day of fearful heat, I went to Williamstown, where I found all the children as well as possible, but heard the news of the Portland fire which almost killed me. All my father's manuscripts are destroyed; we always meant to divide them among us and ought to have done it long ago. I heard of any number of injudicious babies as taking the inopportune day succeeding the fire to enter on the scene of desolation; all born in tents. I am sorry my children will never see my father's church, nor the house where I was born; but private griefs are nothing when compared with a calamity that is so appalling and that must send many a heart homeless and aching to the grave. I spent two weeks at Williamstown, when George came for me, and the weather cooling off, we had a comfortable journey here. We are perfectly delighted with Dorset; the sweet seclusion is most soothing, and the house is very pleasant. Mr. and Mrs. F. are intelligent, agreeable people, and do all they can to make us comfortable. The mountains are so near that I hear the crows cawing in the trees. We are making pretty things and pressing an unheard-of quantity of ferns. We go to the woods regularly every morning and stay the whole forenoon. In the afternoon we rest, read, write, etc.; sometimes we drive and always after tea George walks with me about two miles. I hope the war is not impeding your movements. I suppose you will call this a short letter, but I think it is as long as is good for you. All my dear nine pounds gained at Newburgh have gone by the board. _August 20th._--I am sorry you had such hot weather in Paris, but hope it passed off as our heat did. Dr. Hamlin's two youngest daughters have been here, and came to see me; they are both interesting girls, and the elder of the two really brilliant. They had never been here before, and were carried away with the beauties of their mother's birthplace. I wish you could see my room. Every pretty thing grows here and has come to cheer and beautify it. The woods are everywhere, and as for the views, oh my child! However, I do not suppose anything short of Mt. Blanc will suit you now.

In April, 1867, the parsonage on Thirty-fifth street was occupied. It had been built more especially for her sake, and was furnished by the generosity of her friends. Her joy in entering it was completed by a "house-warming," at the close of which a passage of Scripture was read by Prof. Smith, "All hail the power of Jesus's name" sung, and then the blessing of Heaven invoked upon the new home by that holy man of God, Dr. Thomas H. Skinner. Here she passed the next six years of her life. Here she wrote the larger portion of "Stepping Heavenward." And here the cup of her domestic joy, and of joy in her God and Saviour often ran over. Here, too, some of her dearest Christian friendships were formed and enjoyed.

The summer of 1867 was passed at Dorset. In less than a month of it she wrote one of her best children's books, _Little Lou's Sayings and Doings_; and much of the remainder was spent in discussing with her husband the project of building a cottage of their own. In a letter to her cousin, Miss Shipman, dated Sept. 21, she writes:

We have had our heads full all summer, of building a little cottage here. We are having a plan made, and have about fixed on a lot. We are rather tired of boarding; George hates it, and Dorset suits us as well, I presume, as any village would. It is a lovely spot, and the people are as intelligent as in other parts of New England. The Professor is disappointed at our choosing this rather than Williamstown, but it would be no rest to us to go there. We have not decided to build; it may turn out too expensive; but we have taken lots of comfort in talking about it. We have been on several excursions, one of them to the top of Equinox. It is a hard trip, fully six miles walking and climbing. I have amused myself with writing some little books of the Susy sort: four in less than a month, A.'s sickness taking a good piece of time out of that period. They are to appear, or a part of them, in the Riverside next winter, and then to be issued in book-form by Hurd and Houghton. This will a good deal more than furnish our cottage and what trees and shrubs we want, so that I feel justified in undertaking that expense. We had two weeks at Newport before we came here, and Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy overwhelmed us with kindness, paying our traveling expenses, etc., and keeping up one steady stream of such favors the whole time. I never saw such people. How delightful it must be to be able to express such benevolence! Well; you and I can be faithful in that which is least, at any rate.

We have all had plenty to read all summer, and have sat out of doors and read a good deal. I am going now to carry a little wreath to a missionary's wife who is spending the summer here; a nice little woman; this will give me a three miles walk and about use up the rest of the forenoon. In the afternoon I have promised to go to the woods with the children, all of whom are as brown as Indians. My room is all aflame with two great trees of maple; I never saw such a beautiful velvety color as they have. We have just had a very pleasant excursion to a mountain called Haystack, and ate our dinner sitting round in the grass in view of a splendid prospect.... I have thus given you the history of our summer, as far as its history can be written. Its ecstatic joys have not been wanting, nor its hours of shame and confusion of face; but these are things that can not be described. What a mystery life is, and how we go up and down, glad to-day and sorrowful to-morrow! I took real solid comfort thinking of you and praying for you this morning. I love you dearly and always shall. Good-bye, dear child.

The "four little books" afford a good illustration of the ease and rapidity with which she composed. When once she had fixed upon a subject, her pen almost flew over the paper. Scarcely ever did she hesitate for a thought or for the right words to express it. Her manuscript rarely showed an erasure or any change whatever. She generally wrote on a portfolio, holding it upon her knees. Her pen seemed to be a veritable part of herself; and the instant it began to move, her face glowed with eager and pleasurable feeling. "A kitten (she wrote to a maiden friend) a kitten without a tail to play with, a mariner without a compass, a bird without wings, a woman without a husband (and fifty-five at that!) furnish faint images of the desolation of my heart without a pen." But although she wrote very fast, she never began to write without careful study and premeditation when her subject required it.

About this time _The Little Preacher_ appeared. The scene of the story is laid in the Black Forest. Before writing it she spent a good deal of time in the Astor Library, reading about peasant life in Germany. In a letter from a literary friend this little work is thus referred to:

I want to tell you what a German gentleman said to me the other day about your "Little Preacher." He was talking with me of German peasant life, and inquired if I had read your charming story. He was delighted to find I knew you, and exclaimed enthusiastically: "I wish I knew her! I would so like to thank her for her perfect picture. It is a miracle of genius," he added, "to be able thus to portray the life of a _foreign_ people." He is very intelligent, and so I know you will be pleased with his appreciation of your book. He said if he were not so poor, he would buy a whole edition of the "Little Preacher" to give to his friends.

During the autumn of this year her sister-in-law, Mrs. Edward Payson, died after a lingering, painful illness. The following letter, dated October 28, was written to her shortly before her departure:

I have been so engrossed with sympathy for Edward and your children, that I have but just begun to realise that you are about entering on a state of felicity which ought, for the time, to make me forget them. Dear Nelly, _I congratulate you with all my heart._ Do not let the thought of what those who love you must suffer in your loss, diminish the peace and joy with which God now calls you to think only of Himself and the home He has prepared for you. Try to leave them to His kind, tender care. He loves them better than you do; He can be to them more than you have been; He will hear your prayers and all the prayers offered for them, and as one whom his mother comforteth, so will He comfort them. We, who shall be left here without you, can not conceive the joys on which you are to enter, but we know enough to go with you to the very gates of the city, longing to enter in with you to go no more out. All your tears will soon be wiped away; you will see the King in His beauty; you will see Christ your Redeemer and realise all He is and all He has done for you; and how many saints whom you have loved on earth will be standing ready to seize you by the hand and welcome you among them! As I think of these things my soul is in haste to be gone; I long to be set free from sin and self and to go to the fellowship of those who have done with them forever, and are perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Dear Nelly, I pray that you may have as easy a journey homeward as your Father's love and compassion can make for you; but these sufferings at the worst can not last long, and they are only the messengers sent to loosen your last tie on earth, and conduct you to the sweetest rest. But I dare not write more lest I weary your poor worn frame with words. May the very God of peace be with you every moment, even unto the end, and keep your heart and mind stayed upon Him!

Mrs. Payson had been an intimate friend of her childhood, and was endeared to her by uncommon loveliness and excellence of character. The bereaved husband, with his little boy, passed a portion of the ensuing winter at the parsonage in New York. There was something about the child, a sweetness and a clinging, almost wild, devotion to his father, which, together with his motherless state, touched his aunt to the quick and called forth her tenderest love. Many a page of Stepping Heavenward was written with this child in her arms; and perhaps that is one secret of its power. When, not very long afterwards, he went to his mother, Mrs. Prentiss wrote to the father:

Only this morning I was trying to invent some way of framing my little picture of Francis, so as to see it every day before my eyes. And now this evening's mail brings your letter, and I am trying to believe what it says is true. If grief and pain could comfort you, you would be comforted; we all loved Francis, and A. has always said he was too lovely to live. How are you going to bear this new blow? My heart aches as it asks the question, aches and trembles for you. But perhaps you loved him so, that you will come to be willing to have him in his dear mother's safe keeping; will bear your own pain in future because through your anguish your lamb is sheltered forever, to know no more pain, to suffer no more for lack of womanly care, and is already developing into the rare character which made him so precious to you. Oh do try to rejoice for him while you can not but mourn for yourself. At the longest you will not have long to suffer; we are a short-lived race.

But while I write I feel that I want some one to speak a comforting word to me; I too am bereaved in the death of this precious child, and my sympathy for you is in itself a pang. Dear little lamb! I can not realise that I shall never see that sweet face again in this world; but I shall see it in heaven. God bless and comfort you, my dear afflicted brother. I dare not weary you with words which all seem a mockery; I can only assure you of my tenderest love and sympathy, and that we all feel with and for you as only those can who know what this child was to you. I am going to bed with an aching heart, praying that light may spring out of this darkness. Give love from us all to Ned and Will. Perhaps Ned will kindly write me if you feel that you can not, and tell me all about the dear child's illness.

* * * * *

II.

Last Visit from Mrs. Stearns. Visits to old Friends at Newport and Rochester. Letters. Goes to Dorset. _Fred and Maria and Me_. Letters.

The life of a pastor's wife is passed in the midst of mingled gladness and sorrow. While somebody is always rejoicing, somebody, too, is always sick or dying, or else weeping. How often she goes with her husband from the wedding to the funeral, or hurries with him from the funeral to the wedding. And then, perhaps, in her own family circle the same process is repeated. The year 1868 was marked for Mrs. Prentiss in an unusual degree by the sorrowful experience. The latter part of May Mrs. Stearns, then suffering from an exhausting disease, came to New York and spent several weeks in hopes of finding some relief from change of scene. But her case grew more alarming; she passed the summer at Cornwall on the Hudson in great pain and feebleness, and was then carried home to lie down on her dying bed.

_To Mrs. Stearns, Newport, July 7, 1868._

We had a dreadful time getting here; I did not sleep a wink; there were 1,250 passengers on board, almost piled on each other, and such screaming of babies it would be hard to equal. There are lots of people here we know; ever so many stopped to speak to us after church. We are in the midst of a perfect world of show and glitter. But how many empty hearts drive up and down in this gay procession of wealth and fashion!

I shall think of you a good deal to-day, as setting forth on your journey and reaching your new home. I do hope you will find it refreshing to go up the river, and that your rooms will be pleasant and airy. We shall be anxious to hear all about it.

It is a constant lesson to be with Mrs. McCurdy. I think she is a true Christian in all her views of life and death. Her sweet patience, cheerfulness and contentment are a continual reproof to me. Here she is so lame that she can go nowhere--a lameness of over twenty years--restricted to the plainest food, liable to die at any moment, yet the very happiest, sunniest creature I ever saw. She says, with tears, that God has been _too good_ to her and given her too much; that she sometimes fears He does not love her because He gives her such prosperity. I reminded her of the four lovely children she had lost. "Yes," she says, "but how many lovely ones I have left!" She says that the long hours she has to spend alone, on account of her physical infirmities, are never lonely or sad; she sings hymns and thinks over to herself all the pleasures she has enjoyed in the past, in her husband and children and devoted servants. She goes up to bed singing, and I hear her singing while she dresses. She said, the other day, that at her funeral she hoped the only services would be prayers and hymns of praise. I think this very remarkable from one who enjoys life as she does. [4]

_To the Same, Newport, July 20._

George and I went to Rochester, taking M. with us, last Wednesday and got back Friday night. We had one of those visits that make a mark in one's life; seeing Mr. and Mrs. Leonard, and Mrs. Randall, and Miss Deborah, [5] so fond of us, and all together we were stirred up as we rarely are, and refreshed beyond description. We rowed on Mr. Leonard's beautiful, nameless lake, fished, gathered water-lilies, ate black Hamburg grapes and broiled chickens, and wished you had them in our place. Mr. L.'s mother is a sweet, calm old lady, with whom I wanted to have a talk about Christian perfection, in which she believes; but there was no time. It was a great rest to unbend the bow strung so high here at Newport, where there is so much of receiving and paying visits. I have been reading a delightful French book, the history of a saintly Catholic family of great talent and culture, six of whom, in the course of seven years, died the most beautiful, happy deaths. I am going to make an abstract of it, for I want everybody I love to get the cream of it. You would enjoy it; I do not know whether it has been translated.

_To the Same, Dorset, July 26._

Here begins my first letter to you from your old room, whence I hope to write you regularly every week. That is the one only little thing I can do to show how truly and constantly I sympathise with you in your sore straits. It distresses me to hear how much you are suffering, and at the same time not to be near enough to speak a word of good cheer, or to do anything for your comfort. It grieves me to find how insecure my health is, for I had promised to myself to be your loving nurse, should any turn in your disease make it desirable. Miss Lyman boards here, but rooms at the Sykes', and her friend Miss Warner is also here, but rooms out. Miss W. is in delicate health, takes no tea or coffee, and is full of humor. We have run at and run upon each other, each trying to get the measure of the other, and shall probably end in becoming very good friends.

It is a splendid day, and we feel perfectly at home, only missing you and finding it queer to be occupying your room. What a nice room it is! How I wish you were sitting here with me behind the shade of these maple trees, and that I could know from your own lips just how you are in body and mind. But I suppose the weary, aching body has the soul pretty well enchained. Never mind, dear, it won't be so always; by and by the tables will be turned, and you will be the conqueror. I like to think that far less than a hundred years hence we shall all be free from the law of sin and death, and happier in one moment of our new existence, than through a whole life-time here. Rest must and will come, sooner or later, to you and to me and to all of us, and it will be glorious. You may have seen a notice of the death of Prof. Hopkins' mother at the age of ninety-five. But for this terribly hot weather, I presume she might have lived to be one hundred.

I shall not write you such a long letter again, as it will tire you, and if you would rather have two short ones a week, I will do that. Let me know if I tire you. Now good-bye, dear child; may God bless and keep you and give you all the faith and patience you need.

_To Miss Mary B. Shipman, Dorset, Aug. 2, 1868._

We spent rather more than two weeks at Newport, taking two or three days to run to Rochester, Mass., to see some of our old New Bedford friends. We had a charming time with them, as they took us up just where they left us nearly twenty years ago. Oh, how our tongues did fly! We left Newport for home on Tuesday night about two weeks ago. I went on board and went to bed as well as usual, tossed and turned a few hours, grew faint and began to be sick, as I always am now if I lose my sleep; got out of bed and could not get back again, and so lay on the floor all the rest of the night without a pillow, or anything over me and nearly frozen. The boys were asleep, and anyhow it never crossed my mind to let them call George, who was in another state-room. He says that when he came in, in the morning, I looked as if I had been ill six months, and I am sure I felt so. Imagine the family picture we presented driving from the boat all the way home, George rubbing me with cologne, A. fanning me, the rest crying! On Saturday more dead than alive I started for this place, and by stopping at Troy four or five hours, getting a room and a bed, I got here without much damage.

Our house is very pretty, and I suppose it will be done by next year. Oh, how they do poke! George is so happy in watching it, and in working in his woods, that I am perfectly delighted that he has undertaken this project. It may add years to his life. Imagine my surprise at receiving from Scribner a check for one hundred and sixty-four dollars for six months of Fred and Maria and Me. The little thing has done well, hasn't it? I feel now as if I should never write, any more; letter-writing is only talking and is an amusement, but book-writing looks formidable. Excuse this horrid letter, and write and let me know how you are. Meanwhile collect grasses, dip them in hot water, and sift flour over them. Good-bye, dear.

_Fred and Maria and Me_ first appeared anonymously in the Hours at Home, in 1865. It had been written several years before, and, without the knowledge of Mrs. Prentiss, was offered by a friend to whom she had lent the manuscript, to the Atlantic Monthly and to one or two other magazines, but they all declined it. She herself thus refers to it in a letter to Mrs. Smith, July 13: "I have just got hold of the Hours at Home. I read my article and was disgusted with it. My pride fell below zero, and I wish it would stay there." But the story attracted instant attention. "Aunt Avery" was especially admired, as depicting a very quaint and interesting type of New England religious character in the earlier half of the century. Such men as the late Dr. Horace Bushnell and Dr. William Adams were unstinted in their praise. In a letter to Mrs. Smith, dated a few months later, Mrs. Prentiss writes: "Poor old Aunt Avery! She doesn't know what to make of it that folks make so much of her, and has to keep wiping her spectacles. I feel entirely indebted to you for this thing ever seeing the light." When published as a book, _Fred and Maria and Me_ was received with great favor, and had a wide circulation. In 1874 a German translation appeared. [6] Although no attempt is made to reproduce the Yankee idioms, much of the peculiar spirit and flavor of the original is preserved in this version.

_To Mrs. H. B. Smith, Dorset, August 4, 1868._

Miss Lyman says I have no idea of what Miss W. really is; she looks as if she would drop to pieces, can not drive out, far less walk, and every word she speaks costs her an effort. Miss Lyman is not well either; and what with their health and mine, and A.'s, I see little of them. But what I do see is delightful, and I feel it to be a real privilege to get what scraps of their society I can. Our house proves to be far prettier and more tasteful than I supposed. I am writing up lots of letters, and if I ever get well enough, shall try to begin on my Katy once more. But since reading the Récit d'une Soeur, I am disgusted with myself and my writings. I ache to have you read it. Miss Lyman and Miss Warner send love to you. I do not like Miss L.'s hacking cough, and she says she does not believe Miss W. will live through the winter. Among us we contrive to keep up a vast amount of laughter; so we shall probably live forever.

_August 18th._--I have enjoyed Miss Lyman wonderfully, but want to get nearer to her. I see that she is one who does not find it easy to express her deepest and most sacred feelings. I read Katy to her and Miss W., as they were kind enough to propose I should, and they made some valuable suggestions to which I shall attend if I ever get to feeling able to begin to write again. I am as well as ever save in one respect, and that is my sleep; I do not sleep as I did before I left home, while I ought to sleep better, as I work several hours a day in the woods, in fact do almost literally nothing else.... But after all, we are having the nicest time in the world. I have not seen George so like himself for many years; he lives out of doors, pulls down fences, picks up brushwood, and keeps happy and well. I feel it a real mercy that his thoughts are agreeably occupied this summer, as otherwise he would be incessantly worried about Anna. We work together a good deal; this morning I spoiled a new hatchet in cutting down milkweed where our kitchen garden is to be and we are literally raising our Ebenezer, which we mean to conceal with vines in due season. George is just as proud of our woods as if he created every tree himself. The minute breakfast is over the boys dart down to the house like arrows from the bow, and there they are till dinner, after which there is another dart and it is as much as I can do to get them to bed; I wonder they don't sleep down there on the shavings. The fact is the whole Prentiss family has got house on the brain. There, this old letter is done, and I am going to bed, all black and blue where I have tumbled down, and as tired as tired can be.

_Aug. 28th._--I made a fire in MY woods yesterday, and another to-day, when I melted glue, and worked at my rustic basket, and felt extremely happy and amiable.

_Sept. 13th._--Miss Warner told me to-night that she thought my Katy story commonplace at the beginning, but that she changed her mind afterward. Of course I wrote a story about that marigold of G---- W----'s and I am dying to inflict it on you. Then if you like it, hurrah!

_To Miss Woolsey, Dorset, Aug. 13, 1868._

I was right glad to get your letter yesterday, and to learn a little of your whereabouts and whatabouts. You may imagine "him" as seated, spectacles on nose, reading The Nation at one end of the table, and "her" as established at the other. This table is homely, but has a literary look, got up to give an air to our room; books and papers are artistically scattered over it; we have two bottles of ink apiece, and a box of stamps, a paper cutter and a pen-wiper between us. Two inevitable vases containing ferns, grasses, buttercups, etc., remind us that we are in the country, and a "natural bracket" regales our august noses with an odor of its own. A can of peaches without any peaches in it, holds a specimen of lycopodium, and a marvelous lantern that folds up into nothing by day and grows big at night, brings up the rear. But the most wonderful article in this room is a bookcase made by "him," all himself, in which may be seen a big volume of Fenelon, Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, the Récit d'une Soeur, which have you read? Les Soirées de Saint Petersbourg, Prayers of the Ages, a volume of Goethe, Aristotle's Ethics and some other Greek books; the Life of Mrs. Fry, etc. etc. Such a queer hodge-podge of books as we brought with us, and such a book-case! The first thing "he" ever made for "her" in his mortal life.

Our house isn't done, and what fun to watch it grow, to discuss its merits and demerits, to grab every check that comes in from magazine and elsewhere, and turn it into chairs and tables and beds and blankets! Then for "them boys," what treasures in the way of bits of boards, and what feats of climbing and leaping! Above all, think of "him" in an old banged-in hat, and "her" in a patched old gown, gathering brushwood in their woods, making it up into heaps, and warming themselves by the fires it is agoing for to make.

"Stick after stick did Goody pull!"

Mr. P. is unusually well. His house is the apple of his eye, and he is renewing his youth. Thus far the project has done him a world of good.

_To Mrs. Stearns, Dorset, September 13, 1863._

Yesterday Mr. F. and George drove somewhere to look at sand for mortar, and the horse took fright and wheeled round and pitched George out, bruising him in several places, but doing no serious harm. But I shudder when I think how the meaning might be taken out of everything in this world, for me, at least, by such an accident. He preached all day to-day; in the afternoon at Rupert. I find my mission-school a good deal of a tax on time and strength, and it is discouraging business, too. One of the boys, fourteen years old, found the idea that God loved him so irresistibly ludicrous, that his face was a perfect study. I often think of you as these "active limbs of mine" take me over woods and fields, and remind myself that the supreme happiness of my father's life came to him when he called himself what you call yourself--a cripple. If it is not an expensive book, I think you had better buy A Sister's Story, of which I wrote to you, as it would be a nice Sunday book to last some time; the Catholicism you would not mind, and the cultivated, high-toned Christian character you would enjoy.

The boys complain, as George and I do, that the days are not half long enough. They have got their bedsteads and washstands done, and are now going to make couches for George and myself, and an indefinite number of other articles.

_Sept. 20th._--I am greatly relieved, my dear Anna, to hear that you have got safely into your new home, and that you like it, and long to see you face to face. George has no doubt told you what a happy summer we have had. It has not been unmingled happiness--that is not to be found in this world--but in many ways it has been pleasant in spite of what infirmities of the flesh we carry with us everywhere, our anxiety about and sympathy with you, and the other cares and solicitudes that are inseparable from humanity. I had a great deal of comfort in seeing Miss Lyman while she was here, and in knowing her better, and now I am finding myself quite in love with her intimate friend, Miss Warner, who has been here all summer. A gentler, tenderer spirit can not exist. Mrs. F.'s brother was here with his wife, some weeks ago, and they were summoned home to the death-bed of their last surviving child. Mrs. F. read me a letter yesterday describing her last hours, which were really touching and beautiful, especially the distributing among her friends the various pretty things she had made for them during her illness, as parting gifts. I suppose this will be my last letter from Dorset and from your old room. Well, you and I have passed some happy hours under this roof. Good-bye, dear, with love to each and all of your beloved ones.

_To Miss Eliza A. Warner, Dorset, Sept. 27, 1868._

I was so nearly frantic, my dear Fanny, from want of sleep, that I could not feel anything. I was perfectly stupid, and all the way home from East Dorset hardly spoke a word to my dear John, nor did he to me. [7] The next day he said such lovely things to me that I hardly knew whether I was in the body or out of it, and then came your letter, as if to make my cup run over. I longed for you last night, and it is lucky for your frail body that can bear so little, that you were not in your little room at Mrs. G.'s; but not at all lucky for your heart and soul. I hope God will bless us to each other. It is not enough that we find in our mutual affection something cheering and comforting. It must make us more perfectly His. What a wonderful thing it is that coming here entire strangers to each other, we part as if we had known each other half a century!

I am not afraid that we shall get tired of each other. The great point of union is that we have gone to our Saviour, hand in hand, on the supreme errand of life, and have not come away empty. All my meditations bring me back to that point; or, I should rather say, to Him. I came here praying that in some way I might do something for Him. The summer has gone, and I am grieved that I have not been, from its beginning to its end, so like Him, so full of Him, as to constrain everybody I met to love Him too. Isn't there such power in a holy life, and have not some lived such a life? I hardly know whether to rejoice most in my love for Him, or to mourn over my meagre love; so I do both.

When I think that I have a new friend, who will be indulgent to my imperfections, and is determined to find something in me to love, I am glad and thankful. But when, added to that, I know she will pray for me, and so help my poor soul heavenward, it does seem as if God had been too good to me. You can do it lying down or sitting up, or when you are among other friends. It is true, as you say, that I do not think much of "lying-down prayer" in my own case, but I have not a weak back and do not need such an attitude. And the praying we do by the wayside, in cars and steamboats, in streets and in crowds, perhaps keeps us more near to Christ than long prayers in solitude could without the help of these little messengers, that hardly ever stop running to Him and coming back with the grace every moment needs. You can put me into some of these silent petitions when you are too tired to pray for me otherwise.

I have been writing this in my shawl and bonnet, expecting every instant to hear the bell toll for church, and now it is time to go. Good-bye, dear, till by and by.

Well, I have been and come, and--wonder of wonders!--I have had a little tiny bit of a very much needed nap. Mr. Pratt gave us a really good sermon about living to Christ, and I enjoyed the hymns. We have had a talk, my John and I, about death, and I asked him which of us had better go first, and, to my surprise, he said he thought _I_ should. I am sure that was noble and unselfish in him. But I am not going to have even a wish about it. God only knows which had better go first, and which stay and suffer. Some of His children _must_ go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them; I do not know why I should insist on not being one of them. Sometimes I almost wish we were not building a house. It seems as if it might stand in the way, if it should happen I had a chance to go to heaven. I should almost feel mean to do that, and disappoint my husband who expects to see me so happy there. But oh, I do so long to be perfected myself, and to live among those whose one thought is Christ, and who only speak to praise Him!

I like you to tell me, as you do in your East Dorset letter, how you spend your time, etc. I have an insatiable curiosity about even the outer life of those I love; and of the inner one you can not say too much. Good-bye. We shall have plenty of time in heaven to say all we have to say to each other.

* * * * *

III.

Return to Town. Death of an old Friend. Letters and Notes of Love and Sympathy. An Old Ladies' Party. Scenes of Trouble and Dying Beds. Fifty Years old. Letters.

Her return to town brought with it a multitude of cares. The following months drew heavily upon her strength and sympathies; but for all that they were laden with unwonted joy. The summer at Dorset had been a very happy one. While there she had finished _Stepping Heavenward_ and on coming back to her city home, the cheery, loving spirit of the book seemed still to possess her whole being. Katy's words at its close were evidently an expression of her own feelings:

Yes, I love everybody! That crowning joy has come to me at last. Christ is in my soul; He is mine; I am as conscious of it as that my husband and children are mine; and His Spirit flows forth from mine in the calm peace of a river, whose banks are green with grass, and glad with flowers.

_To Miss Eliza A. Warner, New York, Oct. 5, 1868_

This is the first moment since we reached home, in which I could write to you, but I have had you in my heart and in my thoughts as much as ever. We had a prosperous journey, but the ride to Rupert was fearfully cold. I never remember being so cold, unless it was the night I reached Williamstown, when I went to my dear sister's funeral.... I have told you this long story to try to give you a glimpse of the distracted life that meets us at our very threshold as we return home. And now I'm going to trot down to see Miss Lyman, whom I shall just take and hug, for I am so brimful of love to everybody that I must break somebody's bones, or burst. John preached _delightfully_ yesterday; I wanted you there to hear. But all my treasures are in earthen vessels; he seems all used up by his Sunday and scarcely touched his breakfast. I don't see how his or my race can be very long, if we live in New York. All the more reason for running it well. And what a blessed, blessed life it is, at the worst! "Central peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation." Good-bye, dear; consider yourself embraced by a hearty soul that heartily loves you, and that soul lives in E. P.

On the 25th of October Mr. Charles H. Leonard, an old and highly esteemed friend, died very suddenly at his summer home in Rochester, Mass. He was a man of sterling worth, generous, large-hearted, and endeared to Mrs. Prentiss and her husband by many acts of kindness. He was one of the founders of the Church of the Covenant and had also aided liberally in building its pleasant parsonage.

_To Miss Eliza A. Warner, New York, Oct. 26, 1868._

I am reminded as I write my date, that I am fifty years old to-day. My John says it is no such thing, and that I am only thirty; but I begin to feel antiquated, dilapidated, and antediluvian, etc., etc.

I write to let you know that we are going to Rochester, Mass., to attend the funeral of a dear friend there. It seems best for me to risk the wear and tear of the going and the coming, if I can thereby give even a little comfort to one who loves me dearly, and who is now left without a single relative in the world. For twenty-four years these have been faithful friends, loving us better every year, members of our church in New Bedford, Mercer street, and then here. They lived at Rochester during the summer and we visited them there (you may remember my speaking of it) just before we went to Dorset. Mrs. Leonard was then feeling very uneasy about her husband, but he got better and seemed about as usual, till last Tuesday, when he was stricken down with paralysis and died on Saturday. Somebody said that spending so large a portion of my time as I do in scenes of sorrow, she wondered God did not give me more strength. But I think He knows just how much to give. I have been to Newark twice since I wrote you. Mrs. Stearns is in a very suffering condition; I was appalled by the sight; appalled at the weakness of human nature (its physical weakness). But I got over that, and had a sweet glimpse at least of the _eternal_ felicity that is to be the end of what at longest is a brief period of suffering. I write her a little bit of a note every few days. I feel like a ball that now is tossed to Sorrow and tossed back by Sorrow to Joy. For mixed in with every day's experience of suffering are such great, such unmerited mercies.

Two or three of the little notes follow:

MY DEAREST ANNA :-I long to be with you through the hours that are before you, and to help cheer and sustain you in the trial of faith and patience to which you are called. But unless you need me I will not go, lest I should be the one too many in your state of excitement and suspense. We all feel anxiety as to the result of the incision, but take comfort in casting our care upon God. May Christ Jesus, our dear Saviour, who loves and pities you infinitely more than any of us do, be very near you in this season of suspense. I would gladly exchange positions with you if I might, and if it were best; but as I may not, and it is not best, because God wills otherwise, I earnestly commend you to His tender sympathy. If He means that you shall be restored to health, He will make you happy in living; if He means to call you home to Himself, He will make you happy in dying. Dear Anna, stay yourself on Him: He has strength enough to support you, when all other strength fails. Remember, as Lizzy Smith said, you are "encompassed with prayers."

_Friday Afternoon_,

MY DEAR ANNA :-I send you a "lullaby" for next Sunday, which I met with at Dorset, and hope it will speak a little word and sing a little song to you while the rest are at church. How I do wish I could see you every day! I feel restless with longing; but you are hardly able to take any comfort in a long visit and it is such a journey to make for-a short one! But, as I said the other day, if at any time you feel a little stronger and it would comfort you even a little bit to see me, I will drop everything and run right over. It seems hard to have you suffer so and do nothing for you. But don't be discouraged; pain can't last forever.

"I know not the way I am going
But well do I know my Guide!
With a childlike trust I give my hand,
To the mighty Friend at my side.
The only thing that I say to Him
As He takes it, is, 'Hold it fast.
Suffer me not to lose my way,
And bring me home at last!'"

MY DEAR ANNA:-I feel such tender love and pity for you, but I know you are too sick to read more than a few words.

"In the furnace God may prove thee,
Thence to bring thee forth more bright
But can never cease to love thee:
Thou art precious in His sight!"
Your ever affectionate LIZZY.

_To Mrs. Lenard, Friday, Oct. 30, 1858._

We got home safely last evening before any of the children had gone to bed, and they all came running to meet us most joyfully. This morning I am restless and can not set about anything. It distresses me to think how little human friendship can do for such a sorrow as yours. When a sufferer is on the rack he cares little for what is said to him though he may feel grateful for sympathy. I found it hard to tear myself away from you so soon, but all I could do for you there I could do all along the way home and since I have got here: love you, be sorry for you, and constantly pray for you. I am sure that He who has so sorely afflicted you accepts the patience with which you bear the rod, and that when this first terrible amazement and bewilderment are over, and you can enter into communion and fellowship with Him, you will find a joy in Him that, hard as it is to the flesh to say so, transcends all the sweetest and best joys of human life. You will have nothing to do now but to fly to Him. I have seen the time when I could hide myself in Him as a little child hides in its mother's arms, and so have thousands of aching hearts. In all our afflictions He is afflicted. But I must not weary you with words. May God bless and keep you, and fully reveal Himself unto you!

_To Miss. E. A. Warner, New York, Nov. 2, 1868._