iest room, the door of which closed between us, left a
most forlorn impression upon my memory.

I have been of late myself living in an atmosphere darkened by
distress.... Typhus fever has carried off our most intimate friend, Mr.
B----, after but a fortnight's illness; and closed, almost at its
opening, a career which, under all worldly aspects, was one of fair and
goodly promise. He has left a young widow, to whom he had been married
scarcely more than two years, and a boy-baby who loses in him such a
preceptor as few sons in this country are trained under. I have lost in
him one of the few persons who cheer and make endurable my residence
here. Doubtless our loss is reckoned by Him who decrees it, and I pray
that none of us, by impatience of suffering, may forfeit the precious
uses of sorrow. Our friend and neighbor, W----, has just endured a most
dreadful affliction in the death of his youngest child, his only
daughter, one girl among six sons, the very darling of his heart, loved
above all the others, who, while she was still a baby, not a year old,
drew from him that ludicrously pathetic exclamation, "Oh, the man that
marries one's daughter must be hateful!" She died of scarlet fever,
which, after passing so lightly by our doorposts, has entered, like the
destroying angel, our poor friend's dwelling. His brother has been at
the point of death with it too, and I cannot but rejoice in trembling
when I think how happily we escaped from this terrible plague. As you
may suppose, my spirits have been a good deal affected by all the sorrow
around me.

_Mirabile dictu!_ I _have_ read the volume of Scott's Life which you
left here, also the volume of Miss Edgeworth, with which I was
disappointed; also the volume of Milton: not the Treatise on Divorce,
and the Areopagitica, alone; but Letters, Apologies for Smectymnuus, and
Denunciations against Episcopacy, and all. Did you do as much? Moreover,
I am just finishing Carlyle's "French Revolution"; so that you see, as
my friend Mr. F---- says, I am improving; and if I should ever happen to
read another book, I will be sure to mention the circumstance in my
letters.

Very truly yours,
F. A. B.

March 9th, 1838.
DEAREST EMILY,

I am almost ashamed to say I forgot the anniversary your letter recalls
to me; but the artificial