hrill of sadness. She paused as if for
prayerful preparation, ere she said: "Mary, I have something _sad_,
something _terrible_ to tell you, and I wish to prepare you to bear it
with patience, even as I for five months have borne the burden with silent
submission." She then carefully, calmly, quietly revealed to me the fact
that there was feeding upon her dear life one of those horrible vampires
of human disease--a cancer, which was slowly but surely drawing her nearer
the close. Suddenly all brightness and beauty died out for me, while cloud
and gloom gathered around me, deep, dark and impenetrable; for so had
Hattie entwined herself about my heart, that to my darkened days there
seemed for me no light, no life without her. Surely--

"Sorrows come not single spies,
But in battalions,"

And while I felt myself overwhelmed by this one deep grief in quick
succession came another. One morning while at our breakfast, and without
the slightest preparation, tidings was brought to me that Chicago was
destroyed by fire.

My husband had just completed our new home, a comfortable resting place,
with lovely garden and pleasant surroundings, and thither I had hoped ere
long to go and rest from my labors. Daily, as the diagrams of the fire
reached us, we traced upon them the loved site of our home, as in the
burnt district.

All telegraphic and mail communication being cut off, we could receive no
direct news, and in the intensity and terror of suspense pictured our home
desolated, and friends perished in the horrible holocaust.

Feeling that a resumption of our life of labor was inevitable, we parted
with the dear Sacramento friends, who had so kindly clung to us for
fourteen months, with many a sigh and tear, and went to all the towns of
importance between that place and Reno, Nevada, at which point we took the
stage for Virginia City, and reached it after two weeks of inexpressible
agony, during which time food had scarce passed our lips or sleep visited
our eyes. On our arrival we were overjoyed to find awaiting us seven
letters from home. Oh the eternity that elapsed before the seals could be
tremulously broken! and the halcyon sweetness of relief of the happy
tidings of friends in safety and health. Although the fire-fiend had swept
his destructive wings over the property within a hundred yards of our
home, through a sudden shifting of the wind its course had been changed,
thus saving us from what would have seeme