As to “worry” not being of faith, I do not suppose it is.  But a young mother can not be all faith.  I do not envy people who love so lightly that they have no wringing out of the heart when they lose their dear ones; nor can I understand her who says she can sit and read the newspaper, while her babies are crying.  “None are so old as they who have outlived enthusiasm”; and who should be enthusiastic if a mother may not?  I don’t think God has laid it up against me that I nearly killed myself for the sake of my babies, because when He took two away within three months of each other, my faith in Him did not falter....  Dear Mrs. Fisher, if you love God nothing but His best things will ever come to you.  This is the experience of a very young, old woman, and I hope it will comfort you.

April 21st.—­Such a fight as I have had with your exquisite studies, and how I have been beaten!  I failed entirely in the golden-rod, and do not get the brilliant yellow of the mullein flower; one could not easily fail on the saggitarius, and the clover was tolerable.  I think I will take no more lessons at present, as I have much to do in getting another boy fitted for college.  After I get settled at Dorset I want to make a desperate effort to paint from nature, and if I have any success, send to you for criticism.  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” and I am afraid you will be disgusted with my work, which will be in the dark, since I have had no instruction in copying nature....  Perhaps you may put alongside of the rejection of your picture a lady’s telling me about one of my books into which I had thrown an experience of the last thirty years of my life, “There was nothing in it.”  “Il faut souffrir pour etre belle.”  As long as memory lasts I shall rejoice that I have seen and studied your work.

I remember what a splendid fellow your baby was a year ago.  It will depend on your maternal prayers and discipline whether he grows up to be your comfort.

A few extracts from her letters will give further glimpses of the manner in which she passed these closing months of her life in New York—­ especially of her delight in the weekly Bible-reading.  One of the ladies who attended it, thus refers to that exercise: 

You remember that for one or two years she was a member of a small circle, that met weekly for Bible-study.  When the leader of this circle removed from the city, Mrs. Prentiss was urgently requested to become its teacher, and she consented to do so.  For the last four years of her life she threw her whole soul into this exercise.  Every week the appointed morning found her surrounded by a little group of from eight to fifteen, each with an open Bible and all intent less to analyse the word of God than to feed upon it and “grow thereby.”  And what a wonderful teacher she was!  Not neglectful of any helps that dictionary or commentator might give, her chief source of light was none of these, but was received