tears stand in my eyes, as I think of its
expressions of affection, sympathy, and good sense.... I wish you were
here now--oh, how I do wish it! But you will come next fall, won't you?
and be to me

The antelope whose feet shall bless
With her light step my loneliness.

But my candle burns low, and it is past the witching hour of night.
Whether sleeping or waking, God bless you and our dear mother, and all
of you. Good-night--good-night. My love loads this last line.

To Mrs. Prentiss and her husband, the death of Mrs. Stearns was an
irreparable loss. It took out of their life one of its greatest earthly
blessings.

The new year opened with another painful shock--the sudden and dangerous
illness of her husband's bosom friend, Henry Boynton Smith. Prof. Smith
was to have made one of the addresses at the funeral of Mrs. Stearns;
but instead of doing so, he was obliged to take to his bed, and, soon
afterwards, to flee for his life beyond the sea. To this affliction the
reader is indebted for the letters to Mrs. Smith, contained in this
chapter. On the 16th of February another niece of her husband, a sweet
child of seventeen, was brought to the parsonage very ill and died
there before the close of the month. Her letters will show how she was
affected by these troubles.

_To Mrs. Leonard, New York, Jan. 9, 1869._

So many unanswered letters lie piled on my desk that I hardly know which
to take up first, but my heart yearns over you, and I can not help
writing you. No wonder you grow sadder as time passes and the beloved
one comes not, and comes not. I wish I could help you bear your burden,
but all I can do is to be sorry for you. The peaceable fruits of sorrow
do not ripen at once; there is a long time of weariness and heaviness
while this process is going on; but I do not, will not doubt, that you
will taste these fruits, and find them very sweet. One of the hard
things about bereavement is the physical prostration and listlessness
which make it next to impossible to pray, and quite impossible to feel
the least interest in anything. We must bear this as a part of the pain,
believing that it will not last forever, for nothing but God's goodness
does. How I wish you were near us, and that we could meet and talk and
pray together over all that has saddened our lives, and made heaven such
a blessed reality!

There is not much to tell about the last hours of our dear sister. She
had rallied a good deal, and they