e
she died, fit for the heaven where she now is.... You have lost the
purest, noblest, and best of daughters; I, a sister, who never to my
knowledge did a selfish act or uttered a selfish thought. With the
exception of yourself, dear mother, she was, of all our family circle,
the best prepared to enter her Father's house.

Some extracts from letters written at this time, will show the
tenderness of Mrs. Prentiss' sisterly love and sympathy, and give a
glimpse also of her thoughts and occupations as a young mother.

_To Mrs. Stearns, New Bedford, Feb. 17, 1847_

If I loved you less, my dear Anna, I could write you twenty letters
where I now can hardly get courage to undertake one. How very dearly
I do love you I never knew, till it rushed upon my mind that we might
sometime lose you as we have lost dear Abby. How mysteriously your and
Mary's and my baby are given us just at this very time, when our hearts
are so sore that we are almost afraid to expose them to new sufferings
by taking in new objects of affection! But it does seem to me a great
mercy that, trying as it is in many respects, these births and this
death come almost hand in hand. Surely we three young mothers have
learned lessons of life that must influence us forever in relation to
these little ones!

I have been like one in the midst of a great cloud, since the birth
of our baby, entirely unconscious how much I love her; but I am just
beginning to take comfort in and feel sensible affection for her. I long
to show the dear little good creature to you. But I can hardly give up
my long-cherished plans and hopes in regard to Abby's seeing and loving
our first child. Almost as much as I depended on the sympathy and
affection of my own mother in relation to this baby, I was depending on
Abby's. But I rejoice that she is where she is, and would not have her
back again in this world of sin and conflict and labor, for a thousand
times the comfort her presence could give. But you don't know how I
dread going home next summer and not finding her there! It was a great
mercy that you could go down again, dear Anna. And indeed there are
manifold mercies in this affliction--how many we may never know, till we
get home to heaven ourselves and find, perhaps, that this was one of the
invisible powers that helped us on our way thither. I had a sweet little
note from your mother to-day. I would give anything if I could go right
home, and make her adopt me as her daughter