Sept. 21st.—­It cuts me to the heart, my precious boy, that your college life begins under such a shadow.  But I hope you know where to go in both loneliness and trouble.  You may get a telegram before this reaches you; if you do not you had better pack your valise and have it ready for you to come at a minute’s warning.  The doctor gives us hardly a hope that M. will live; she may drop away at any moment.  While she does live you are better off at Princeton; but when she is gone we shall all want to be together.  We shall have her buried here in Dorset; otherwise I never should want to come here again.  A. said this was her day to write you, but she had no heart to do it.  The only thing I can do while M. is asleep, is to write letters about her.  Good-night, dear boy.

22d—­The doctor was here from eight to nine last night and said she would suffer little more and sleep her life away. She says she is nicely and the nurse says so.  Your father and I have had a good cry this morning, which has done us no little service.  Dear boy, this is a bad letter for you, but I have done the best I can.

To Mrs. George Payson, New York, Oct. 31, 1875

I hope you received the postal announcing our safe arrival home.  I have been wanting to answer your last letter, but now that the awful strain is over I begin to flag, am tired and lame and sore, and any exertion is an effort.  But after all the dismal letters I have had to write, I want to tell you what a delightful day yesterday was to us all; G. home from Princeton, all six of us at the table at once, “eating our meat with gladness”; the pleasantest family day of our lives.  M.’s recovery during the last week has been little short of miraculous.  We got her home, after making such a bugbear of it, in perfect comfort.  We left Dorset about noon in a close carriage; the doctor and his wife were at the station and weighed M., when we found she had lost thirty-six pounds.  The coachman took her in his arms and carried her into the car, when who should meet us but the Warners.  On reaching the New York depot, George rushed into the car in such a state of wild excitement that he took no notice of any one but M.; he then flew out and a man flew in, and without saying a word snatched her up in his arms, whipped her into a reclining-chair, and he and another man scampered with her to the carriage and seated her in it; I had to run to keep up with them, and nearly knocked down a gigantic policeman who was guarding it.  The Warners spent the night here and left next morning before I was up, so afraid of making trouble....  A friend has put a carriage at our disposal, and M. is to drive every day when and where and as long as she pleases.  And now I hope I shall have something else to write about....  As to the Bible-readings, I do not find commentaries of much use.  Experience of life has been my chief earthly teacher, and one gains that every day.  You must not write me such long letters; it is too much for you.  How I do wish you would do something desperate about getting well!  At any rate, don’t, any of you, have typhoid fever.  It is the very meanest old snake of a fox I ever heard of, making its way like a masked burglar.