y you like to know all I do while you are away. Our sweet baby
makes your absence far less intolerable than it used to be before she
came to comfort me.... I have felt all soul and as if I had no body,
ever since your precious letter came this morning. I have so pleased
myself with imagining how funny and nice it would be if I could creep in
unperceived by you, and hear your oration! I long to know how you got
through, and what Mr. Stearns and Mr. Smith thought of it. I always pray
for you more when you are away than I do when you are at home, because I
know you are interrupted and hindered about your devotions more or less
when journeying. I have had callers a great part of to-day, among them
Mrs. Leonard, Mrs. Gen. Thompson, Mrs. Randall, and Capt. Clark. [6]
Capt. C. asked for nobody but the baby. The little creature almost
sprang into his arms. He was much gratified and held her a long while,
kissing and caressing her. I think it was pretty work for you to go to
reading your oration to your mother and old Mrs. Coe, when you hadn't
read it to me. I felt a terrible pang of jealousy when I came to that in
your letter. I am going now to call on Miss Arnold.

_Friday, Sept, 3d._--Yesterday forenoon I was _perfectly wretched_. It
came over me, as things will in spite of us, "Suppose he didn't get
safely to Brunswick!" and for several hours I could not shake it off.
It had all the power of reality, and made me so faint that I could do
nothing and fairly had to go to bed. I suppose it was very silly, and
if I had not tried in every way to rise above it might have been even
wicked, but it frightened me to find how much I am under the power of
mere feeling and fancy. But do not laugh at me. Sometimes I say to
myself, "What MADNESS to love any human being so intensely! What would
become of you if he were snatched from you?" and then I think that
though God justly denies us comfort and support for the future, and
bids us lean upon Him _now_ and trust Him for the rest, He can give us
strength for the endurance of His most terrible chastisements when their
hour comes.

_Saturday._--I am a mere baby when I think of your getting sick in this
time of almost universal sickness and sorrow and death.... Yesterday
Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Leonard took me, with Sophia and baby, to the
cemetery, and on a long ride of three hours--all of which was
delightful. In the afternoon baby had an ill-turn which alarmed me
excessively, because so many c