ity
from which its mother's recovery has spared you. Tardy as are these
words, my sympathy has been sincerely yours during this your season of
trial; and though I have done myself injustice in not sooner writing to
you, believe me I have felt more for you and yours than any letter could
express, though I had written it the moment the news reached me....

That your father died as full of honor as of years, that his life was a
task well fulfilled, and his death not unbecoming so worthy a life, is
matter of consolation to you, and all who knew and loved him less than
you. I scarce know how you could have wished any other close to his
career; the pang of losing such a friend you could not expect to escape,
but there was hardly a circumstance (as regarded your father himself)
which it seems to me you can regret. Poor M---- will be the bitterest
sufferer [the lady was traveling in Europe at the time of her father's
death], and for her, indeed, my compassion is great, strengthened as it
is by my late experience, and constant apprehension of a similar
affliction,--I mean my mother's death, and the dread of hearing, from
across this terrible barrier, that I have lost my father. I pity her
more than I can express; but trust that she will find strength adequate
to her need.

Give my kindest love to your wife. I rejoice in her safety for your sake
and that of her children, more even than for her own; for it always
seems well to me with those who have gone to rest, but her loss would
have been terrible for you, and her girl has yet to furnish her some
work, and some compensation....

If Anne is with you, remember me very kindly to her, and

Believe me ever most truly yours,
F. A. B.

[The little daughter referred to in the above letter became Mrs.
Charles Norton, one of the loveliest and most charming of young
American women, snatched by an untimely death from the midst of an
adoring family and friends.]

PHILADELPHIA, Friday, December 14th, 1839.
DEAREST HARRIET,

... It is perhaps well for you that this letter has suffered an
interruption here, as had this not been the case you might have been
edified with a yet further "complaint." ...

We have shut up our house in the country, and are at present staying in
Philadelphia, at my brother-in-law's; but we are expecting every day to
st