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.