For years her letters helped to cherish and deepen this feeling. He thus refers to one of them:
I can not tell how much I thank you for it. I cried like a child while reading it, and even now the 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 all thought she was getting well; but the day after Christmas typhoid symptoms began to set in. I saw her on the Monday following, found her greatly depressed, and did not stay long. On Saturday morning, we got a dispatch we should have received early on New Year's day, saying she was sinking. We hurried out, found her flushed and bright, but near her end, having no pulse at either wrist, and her hands and feet cold. She had had a distressing day and night, but now seemed perfectly easy; knew us, gave us a glad welcome, reminded me that I had promised to go with her to the end, and kissed us heartily. Every time we went near her she gave us such a glad smile that it was hard to believe she was going so soon. She talked incessantly, with no signs of debility, but it was the restlessness of approaching death.
At three in the afternoon they all came into the room, as they always did at that hour. She said a few things, and evidently began to lose her sight, for as Lewis was about to leave the room, she said, "Good-night, L.," and then to me, "Why, Lizzy dear, you are not going to stay all night?" I said, "Oh yes, don't you know I promised to stay with A., who will be so lonely?" She looked pleased, but greatly surprised, her mind being so weak, and in a few seconds she laid her restless hands on her breast, her eyes became fixed, and the last gentle breaths began to come and go. "Is the doctor here?" she asked. We told her no, and then Mr. S. and the nurse, who were close each side of her, began to repeat a verse or two of Scripture; then seeing she was apparently too far gone to hear, Mr. S. leaned over and whispered, "My darling!" She made no response, on which he said, "She can make no response," and she said, "But I hear," gave one or two more gentle little breaths, and was gone. I forgot to say that after her eyes were fixed, hearing Mr. S. groan, she stopped dying, turned and gave a parting look! I never saw an easier death, nor such a bright face up to the very last. One of the doctors coming in, in the morning, was apparently overcome by the extraordinary smile she gave him, for he turned away immediately without a word, and left the house. I staid, as they wished me to do, till Monday night, when I came home quite used up. Your sorrow, and the sorrow at Brooklyn, and now this one, have come one after another until it seemed as if there was no end to it; such is life, and we must bear it patiently, knowing the end will be the more joyful for all that saddened the way.