“Oh, make us worthy, Lord, alway,
This weight of love to bear....”’
Don’t be too self-distrustful, dear child,—I don’t believe that you are at all ‘unfit to be a help to anyone’.... Send me as long a letter as your indolence will admit of, and tell me all about your prospects, and whether your engagement is likely to be a short or long one.”
“Dec. 13th. 1864.
... Having heard from E. B. of your marriage last month, I was not quite so bewildered as I might have been at receiving an epistle from a certain mysterious ‘Lucy Unwin’—
... I am so glad to hear of your being so happy, dear child (dear me, I suppose I ought to be more respectful to so venerable a matron!) I daresay if I heard the other side of the question it would not be so full of wailings over your incompetencies general and particular as yours is.... I should like exceedingly to see you in your new sphere ... and please thank your husband very much for taking me so much on trust as to want to see me,—though perhaps, after all, the real compliment is to you! It will be a great pleasure for me to come to you for a few days when I am next in the North.”[North.”]
[Received May 10th, 1865.]
I had hoped to pay you a visit before this, and I am afraid you will be disappointed as well as myself when I tell you it must now, I fear, be indefinitely deferred, for circumstances have made me decide rather hurriedly to pay a long-planned visit to America for the purpose of learning something about the schools and colleges there.
I am to start from Liverpool on Saturday the 27th., and am going to take with me a girl whom you will perhaps hardly remember at Qu: College:—indeed I think she was after your time,—Isabel Bain.
“May 14th., 1865.