and poor Joe.  I fancy you will have one though, and oh, I wish I was with you to see it, but mamma is often very poorly now, and likes me to be with her, and I know I am in the right place, so I won’t wish to be elsewhere.  Papa is very much from home now, he has so many patients at a distance, and sometimes he takes me long rides with him, which is a great pleasure.  One of his patients is just dead, you will be sorry to hear who I mean—­Poor old Joe Murray!  He took cold in November, going out with his Life Boat, one very stormy night, to a ship in distress off L——­ sands, the wind and rain were very violent, and he was too long in his wet clothes, but he saved with his own arm two of the crew; two boys about the age of his own poor Bob.  Every one says it was a noble act; they were just ready to sink, and the boat in another moment would have gone off without them.  His own life was in great danger, but be said he remembered your, or rather the Saviour’s, “Golden Rule,” and could not hesitate.  Think of remembering that in a November storm in the raging sea!  He plunged in and dragged first one and then another into the boat.  These boys were brothers, and it was their first voyage.  They told Joe that they had gone to sea out of opposition to their father, who contradicted their desires in every thing, but that now they had had quite enough of it, and should return; but I must not tell you all their story, or my letter will he too long.  Joe, as I told you, caught cold, and though he was kindly nursed and Sarah waited on him beautifully, he got worse and worse.  I often went to see him, and he was very fond of my reading in the Bible to him; but one day last week he was taken with inflammation of the chest, and died in a few hours.  Papa says he might have lived years, but for that cold, he was such a healthy man.  I feel very sorry he is gone.

I can’t help crying when I think of it, for I remember he was very useful to me that May evening when we were primrose gathering.  Do you recollect that evening, Emilie?  Ah, I have much to thank you for.  What a selfish, wilful, irritable girl I was!  So I am now at times, my evil thoughts and feelings cling so close to me, and I have no longer you, dear Emilie, to warn and to encourage me, but I have Jesus still.  He Is a good Friend to me, a better even than you have been.

I owe you a great deal Emilie; you taught me to love, you showed me the sin of temper, and the beauty of peace and love.  I go and see Miss Webster sometimes, as you wish; she is getting very much more sociable than she was, and does not give quite such short answers.  She often speaks of you, and says you were a good friend to her; that is a great deal for her to say, is it not?  How happy you must be to have every one love you!  I am glad to say that Fred’s canaries are well, but they don’t agree at all times.  There is no teaching canaries to love one another, so all I can do is to separate the fighters; but I love those birds, I love them for Fred’s sake, and I love them for the remembrances they awaken of our first days of peace and union.

  My love to Joe, poor Joe!  Do write and tell me how
  he goes on, does he walk at all?  Ever dear Emilie,