ncouraged you to
expect any thing very favourable. On the evening of the same day
(the 3d,) at twenty-one minutes after ten at night, my mother fell
happily asleep in God, and was already experiencing the joys of
heaven at the very moment that I wrote to you. All was over--I
wrote to you in the night, and I trust that you and my sister will
pardon this slight but very necessary artifice;--for when, after
all the distress that I had suffered, I turned my thoughts towards
you, I could not possibly persuade myself to surprise you all at
once with the dreadful and fatal news. Now, however, I hope that
you have both prepared yourselves to hear the worst; and after
giving way to the reasonable and natural impulses of your grief,
to submit yourselves at last to the will of God, and to adore his
inscrutable, unfathomable, and all-wise providence.

* * * * *

"I write this in the house of Madame d'Epinay and M. Baron de
Grimm, with whom I am now staying, and where I have a pretty
little room with a pleasant prospect, and am, as far as
circumstances will permit, happy. It would be a great additional
comfort were I to hear that my dear father and sister had resigned
themselves with fortitude and submission to the will of God;
trusting him entirely, in the full conviction that every thing is
ordered for our good. Dear father--be comforted! Dearest
sister--be comforted!--you know not the kind intentions of your
brother towards you; because hitherto they have not been in his
power to fulfil.

"I hope that you will both be careful of your health. Remember
that you have still a son--a brother--who will exert himself to
the utmost for your happiness, well knowing what sacrifices you
are both ready to make for him, and that when the time shall come,
neither of you will oppose the fulfilment of his honourable
wishes. Oh! then we will lead a life as peaceful and happy as is
attainable in this world; and at length, in God's time, meet all
together again in the enjoyment of that object for which we were
created."

We have given these letters at some length, as we think they show the
worth, affection, and right feeling of the whole family.

The disconsolate state in which his father was thus left, decided
Mozart, however reluctant, to return to the hated service of the
Archbi