her stand round.  Her going plunges us into a new world of care and anxiety and tribulation; we have thrust our children out into, or on to, the great ocean, and are about ready to sink with them.  If I could sit down and cry, it would do me lots of good, but I can’t.  Then how am I to spare my twin-boy, and my A. and my M.?  Who is to keep me well snubbed?  Who is to tell me what to wear?  Who is to keep Darby and Joan from settling down into two fearful old pokes?

Your husband suggests that “if I have a husband, etc.”  I have had one with a vengeance.  He has worked like seventeen mad dogs all summer, and I have hardly laid eyes on him.  When I have, it has been to fight with him; he would come in with a hoe or a rake or a spade in his hand, and find me with a broom, a shovel, or a pair of tongs in mine, and without a word we would pitch in and have an encounter.  Of all the aggravating creatures, hasn’t he been aggravating!  Sometimes I thought he had run raving distracted, and sometimes I dare say, he thought I had gone melancholy mad.  He persists to this day that the work did him good, and that he enjoyed his summer.  Well, maybe he did; I suppose he knows.

How glad I am for you that you are to have the children go to you.  It seems to be exactly the right thing.  I hope to get a copy of Katy to send by the girls, but can’t think of anything else.  As A. is to be where you are, you will probably be kept well posted in the doings of our family.  I do hope she will not be a great addition to your cares, but have some misgivings as to the effect so long absence from home may have upon her.  What a world this is for shiftings and siftings!

To G. S. P. October, 1869.

I always thought George McDonald a little audacious, though I like him in the main.  There is a fallacy in this cavil, you may depend.  Some years ago, when I was a little befogged by plausible talk, Dr. Skinner came to our house, got into one of his best moods, and preached a regular sermon on the glory of God, that set me all right again.  I am not skilled in argument, but my heart sides with God in everything, and my conception of His character is such a beautiful one that I feel that He can not err.  I do not like the expression, “He’s aye thinking about his own glory” (I quote from memory); it belittles the real fact, and almost puts the Supreme Being on a level with us poor mortals.  The more time we spend upon our knees, in real communion with God, the better we shall comprehend His wonderful nature, and how impossible it is to submit that nature to the rules by which we judge human beings.  Every turn in life brings me back to this—­more prayer....  I shall go with much pleasure to see Mrs. G. and may God give me some good word to say to her.  I almost envy you your sphere of usefulness, but unless I give up mine, can not get fully into it.  I want you to know that next to being with my Saviour, I love to be with His sufferers;