But little time was given to make arrangements for the departure of Tremaine, who had determined not only on leaving the State, but the country. Mr. and Mrs. Dunning wished Sophia to remain with them, at least until her husband had procured some situation which might afford him a competent support. But Sophia would not listen to this—she would go with him—“she could do many things,” she said, “to aid him.” Fanny Dunning smiled, but she knew that Sophia was right in thus fulfilling her wifely duties, and both herself and her husband prepared every thing necessary for the comfort of the voyagers.
It was a bright morning in May, when these true and tried friends accompanied Tremaine and his wife in the noble ship which bore them down the bay, and with many a warm tear and repeated blessing wished them a prosperous voyage to England, and returned to the city.
And now we cannot better conclude their story than by giving an extract from a letter, written some time after the occurrence of the events already related, by Mr. Tremaine to his friend Judge Dunning.
“I must congratulate you, my dear Dunning, on your elevation to the bench; but I must not allow myself to utter all the praises that are swelling at my heart, nor does it require words to convey to you my respect, my esteem, my gratitude, and my love—ay, my love—for I do love you as a brother.
“Sophy bids me haste and tell you our good fortune—softly, dear wife, I will do so in a moment or two. You may perhaps recollect, my dear friend, that I wrote you how difficult it was for me to procure employment on my first arrival in Liverpool, and that this was mainly owing to my total ignorance of any kind of business. Indeed, had it not been for the few valuables belonging to my wife, which she cheerfully parted with, and had it not been for her kind and encouraging words, I should have yielded to despair. You know, too, my dear Dunning, that, glad to do any thing in honesty, I at last obtained a situation as clerk in a grocery store.
“How often has my cheek burned with shame, at the recollection of my silly contempt for trades-people, when I was worse than idling away my time at college? How often has my heart smote me when I thought of my conduct toward you, my noble-minded, my best earthly friend? But why repeat all this? You have long since forgiven me, and yet I never can forgive myself. And now for my good fortune. My employer has enlarged his business and taken me into partnership, so that I am in a fair way of being once more a rich man, (and may I not add a wiser one?) and your little namesake here, Robert Dunning, who is standing at my knee, is in an equally fair way of remaining what he now is—the son of a grocer. Heaven grant that he may in every thing resemble the man to whom his father once used the words as a term of reproach. This is now my highest earthly ambition for my boy, and I pray that my own lessons in the school of adversity may enable me to teach him to place a juster estimate on the empty distinctions of society, and to learn how true are the words of the poet—
“Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well thy part, there all the honor lies.”