hearing of war, or murder, or cruelty to animals, while she was ever
guarding him lest his eyes might rest upon some painful or disagreeable
object."

"Don't you think, mamma," said Marguerite, "that that letter of
Margaret Fuller's upon Pickie's death shows remarkable feeling for a
child unrelated to her?"

"Which letter?" inquired Ida.

"The one that is copied in the 'Recollections,'" was the reply.

"I think," returned Ida, "that the one she wrote to papa which has
never been published is much finer."

"Oh, do read it to us," said Marguerite. So, unlocking a little box,
Ida took out a sheet quite yellow and worn, and read it to us:

"RIETI, _August 25, 1848_.

"MY BELOVED FRIEND:--Bitterest tears alone can answer those
words--_Pickie is dead_. My heart has all these years presaged them.
I have suffered not a few sleepless hours thinking of our darling,
haunted with fears never again to see his sweet, joyous face which on
me, also, always looked with love and trust. But I always thought of
small-pox. Now how strangely snatched from you, oh poor mother; how
vain all your feverish care night and day to ward off the least
possible ill from that fair frame. Oh, how pathetic it seems to think
of all that was done for dear, dear Pickie to build up strong that
temple from which the soul departed so easily.

"You say I left him too soon to know him well, but it was not so. I
had spiritual sight of the child, and knew his capacities. I hoped to
be of use to him if he lived, for sweet was our communion beside the
murmuring river, and when he imitated the low voices of the little
brook, or telling him stories in my room, which even then he well
understood. A thousand times I have thought of the time when he first
said the word _Open_ to get into my room, and my heart always was open
to him. He was my consolation in hours sadder than you ever
guessed--my spring-flower, my cheerful lark. None but his parents
could love him so well; no child, except little Waldo Emerson, had I
ever so loved. In both I saw the promise of a great future: its
realization is deferred to some other sphere; ere long may we follow
and aid it there.

"Ever sacred, my friend, be this bond between us--the love and
knowledge of the child. I was his aunty; and no sister can so feel
what you lose. My friend, I have never wept so for grief of my own, as
now for yours. It seems to me _too_ cruel; you are resigned; you make
holy profit