During the winter her health had become so much impaired, that great anxiety was felt as to the issue.  In a letter to her friend, Miss Ellen Thurston, dated April 20, 1844, she writes: 

You remember, perhaps, that on the afternoon you were so good as to come and spend with me, I was making a fuss about a little thing on my shoulder.  Well, I had at last to have it removed, and though the operation was not in itself very painful, its effects on my whole nervous system have been most powerful.  I have lost all regular habits of sleep—­for a week I do not know that I slept two hours—­and am ready to fly into a fit at the bare thought of sitting still long enough to write a common letter.  I have, however, the consolation of being pitied and consoled with, as there’s something in the idea of cutting at the flesh which touches the heart, a thousand times more than some severer sufferings would do.  I am getting quite thin and weak upon it, and I believe mother firmly expects me to shrink into nothing, though I am a pretty bouncing girl still.

Owing to some mishap the healing process was entirely thwarted, and after a very trying summer, the operation had to be repeated.  This time it was performed by that eminent surgeon and admirable Christian man, Dr. John C. Warren of Boston, assisted by his son, Dr. J. M. W. Dr. Warren told Miss Payson’s friend, who had accompanied an invalid sister to New York, that he thought it would require “about five minutes;” but it proved to be much more serious than he had anticipated.  Miss Willis, in her letter from Geneva already quoted, thus refers to it: 

My next meeting with Lizzy revealed a striking trait of her character, which hitherto I had had no opportunity of observing—­her wonderful fortitude under suffering.  I was at the seashore with my sister and family when, her little child being taken suddenly very ill in the night, I went up to Boston by an early train to bring down as soon as possible our family physician.  On arriving at his house I was disappointed at being told that he could not come at once, being engaged to perform an operation that morning.  While waiting for the return train, I called at my father’s office and was surprised to hear that Lizzy was the patient.  A painful tumor had developed itself on the back of her neck, and she had come up with her mother to Boston to consult Dr. Warren, who had advised its immediate removal.

I went at once to see her.  She greeted me with even more than her usual warmth and after stating in a few words the object of her coming to Boston and that she was expecting the doctors every moment, she added:  “You will stay with me, I am sure.  Mother insists on being present, but she can not bear it.  She will be sure to faint.  If you will promise to stay, I can persuade her to remain in the next room.”  Seeing the distress in my face at the request, she said, “I will be very good.  You will have nothing to do but