I think there is such a thing as peace of conscience even in this life.  I do not mean careless peace, or heedless peace; I mean calm consciousness of an understanding, so to speak, between the soul and its Lord.  A wife, for instance, may say and do things to her husband that show she is human; yet, at the same time, the two may live together loyally, and be happy.  And unless a Christian is aware of having on hand an idol, dearer than God, I see no reason why he should not live in peace, even while aware that he is not yet finished (perfect).  We love God more than we are aware; when He slays us we trust in Him, when He strikes us we kiss His hand.

Her own mood at this time was singularly grave and pensive.  She felt more and more keenly the moral puzzle and contradictions of existence.  “From beginning to end, in every aspect,” she wrote to a friend, “life grows more mysterious to me, not to say queer—­for that is not what I mean.  Such strange things are all the time happening, and even good people doing and saying things that nearly drive one wild....  We live in a mixed state, in a kind of see-saw:  we go up and then we go down; go down and then fly up.”  Still this strange, ever-changing mystery of life, although it sometimes perplexed her in the extreme, did not make her unhappy.  “I have great sources of enjoyment,” she adds, “and do enjoy a good deal; infinitely more than I deserve.”

Early in June she and the younger children went to Dorset.  On reaching there, she wrote to her husband: 

Here we are, sitting by the fire in our dear little parlor.  We made a very comfortable journey to Manchester, but the ride from there here was rather cheerless and cold, as they forgot to send wraps.  The neighbors had sent in various good things, and the strawberries looked very nice.  It rains, but M. and I have surveyed the garden, and she says it is looking better than usual.

I only wish you were here.  Your love is intensely precious to me, as I know mine is to you.  How thankful we ought to be that we have loved each other through thick and thin!  This is God’s gift.  I can not write legibly with this pencil, nor see very well, as it is a dark day, and yet too early for a lamp.

The latter part of June she made a short visit with her husband to Montreal.  A pleasant incident of this journey was an excursion to Quebec, where two charming days were spent in seeing the Falls of Montmorenci, the Plains of Abraham, and other objects of interest in and about that remarkable city.  During the ride in the cars from Montreal to St. Albans, she called the attention of her husband to a paragraph from an English newspaper containing an account of the death of a miner by an explosion, on whose breast was found a lock of hair inscribed with the name of “Jessie.”  She remarked that the incident would serve as an excellent hint for a story.  This was the origin of Gentleman Jim, the pathetic little tale published shortly after her death.