ead your very kind, affectionate, and respectful Letter of
the 15th Inst. with Feelings of Satisfaction and
thankfulness--thankful that God has mercifully given you so
pleasing a Pledge of the Love of my late dear, but lamented
son, and I most sincerely hope and trust that dear little
Henrietta will live to be the Joy and Consolation of your Life:
and satisfyed I am that you are what I always esteemed you to
be, _one_ of the best of Women; God grant! that you may be, as
I am sure you deserve to be _one_ of the happiest--His Ways of
Providence are past finding out; to you--they seem indeed to
have been truly afflictive: but we cannot possibly say that
they are really so; we cannot doubt His Wisdom nor ought we to
distrust His Goodness, let us avow, then, where we have not the
Power of fathoming--viz. the dispensations of God; in His good
time He will show us, perhaps, that every painful Event which
has happened was abundantly for the best--I am truly glad to
hear that you and the sweet Babe, my little grand Daughter, are
doing so well, and I hope I shall have the pleasure shortly of
seeing you either at Oulton or Sisland. I am sorry to add that
neither Poor L. nor myself are well.--Louisa and my Family join
me in kind love to you, and in best regards to your worthy
Father, Mother, and Brother.

Mary Skepper was certainly a bright, intelligent girl, as I gather from
a manuscript poem before me written to a friend on the eve of leaving
school. As a widow, living at first with her parents at Oulton Hall, and
later with her little daughter in the neighbouring cottage, she would
seem to have busied herself with all kinds of philanthropies, and she
was clearly in sympathy with the religious enthusiasms of certain
neighbouring families of Evangelical persuasion, particularly the
Gurneys and the Cunninghams. The Rev. Francis Cunningham was Rector of
Pakefield, near Lowestoft, from 1814 to 1830. He married Richenda, a
sister of the distinguished Joseph John Gurney and of Elizabeth Fry, in
1816. In 1830 he became Vicar of St. Margaret's, Lowestoft. His brother,
John William Cunningham, was Vicar of Harrow, and married a Verney of
the famous Buckinghamshire family. This John William Cunningham was a
great light of the Evangelical Churches of his time, and was for many
years editor of _The Christian Observer_. His daughter Mary R