Early in the following summer she was distressed by the sudden
bereavement of dear friends and by the death of her nephew, who fell in
one of the battles of the Wilderness. In a letter to Miss Gilman, dated
June 18th, she refers to this:

Your dear little flowers came in excellent condition, but at a moment
when I could not possibly write to tell you so. The death of Mrs. R. H.
broke my heart. I only knew her by a sort of instinct, but I sorrowed in
her mother's sorrow and in that of her sisters. Death is a blessed thing
to the one whom it leads to Christ's kingdom and presence, but oh, how
terrible for those it leaves fainting and weeping behind! We expect to
go off for the summer on next Thursday. We go to Hunter, N. Y., in the
region of the Catskills. My husband's mother has been with me during the
last six weeks and has just gone home, and I have now to do up the last
things in a great hurry. You may not know that my A. and M. S., and a
number of other young people of their age, joined our church on last
Sunday. I can hardly realise my felicity. I seem to myself to have a new
child. Your sister may have told you of the loss of Professor Hopkins'
son. He was the first grandchild in our family and his father's _all_.
We may never hear what his fate was, but the suspense has been dreadful.

Her interest in the national struggle was intense and her conviction of
its Providential character unwavering. To a friend, who seemed to her a
little lukewarm on the subject, she wrote at this time:

For my part, I am sometimes afraid I shall die of joy if we ever gain a
complete and final victory. You can call this spunk if you choose.
But my spunk has got a backbone of its own and that is deep-seated
conviction, that this is a holy war, and that God himself sanctions it.
He spares nothing precious when He has a work to do. No life is too
valuable for Him to cut short, when any of His designs can be furthered
by doing so. But I could talk a month and not have done, you wicked
unbeliever.

_To her Husband, Hunter, June 27, 1864._

This morning, after breakfast, I sallied out with six children to take a
most charming walk, scramble, climb, etc. We put on our worst old duds,
tuck up our skirts June 27, knee-high, and have a regular good time of
it. If you were awake so early as eight o'clock--I don't believe you
were! you might have seen us with a good spy-glass, and it would have
made your righteous soul leap for joy to see how