I would love to have you here with me in this dear little den of mine
and see the mountains from my window. My husband has gone back to town,
and my only society is that of the children, so you would be most
welcome if you should come in either smiling or sighing. I have had a
cloud over me of late. Do you know about Mr. Prentiss' appointment by
General Assembly to a professorship at Chicago? His going would involve
not only our tearing ourselves out of the heart of our beloved church,
but of my losing you and Miss K., and of our all losing this dear little
home. Of course, he does not want to go, and I am shocked at the thought
of his leaving the ministry; but, on the other hand, there is a right
and a wrong to the question, and we ought to want to do whatever God
chooses. The thought of giving up this home makes me know better how to
sympathise with you if you have to part with yours. I do think it is
good for us to be emptied from vessel to vessel, and there is something
awful in the thought of having our own way with leanness in the soul. I
am greatly pained in reading Faber's Life and Letters, at the shocking
way in which he speaks of Mary, calling her his mamma, and praying to
her and to Joseph, and nobody knows who not. It seems almost incredible
that this is the man who wrote those beautiful strengthening hymns. It
sets one to praying "Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe." ... I should
have forgotten the lines of mine you quote if you had not copied them.
God give to you and to me a thousandfold more of the spirit they
breathe, and make us wholly, wholly His own! My repugnance to go to
Chicago makes me feel that perhaps that is just the wrench I need. Well,
good-bye; at the longest we have not long to stay in this sphere of
discipline and correction.

_To Mr. G. S. P., Dorset, July 13, 1870._

I had just come home from a delicious little tramp through our own woods
when your letter came, and now, if you knew what was good for you, you
would drop in and take tea and spend the evening with us. I should like
you to see our house and our mountains, and our cup that runs over till
we are ashamed. Had I not known you wouldn't come I should have given
you a chance, especially as my husband was gone and I was rather lonely;
though to be sure he always writes me every day. On the way up here I
was glad of time to think out certain things I had been waiting for
leisure to attend to. One had some connection with you, as