What a world of new sensations and emotions come with the first child!  I was quite unprepared for the rush of strange feelings—­still more so for the saddening and chastening effect.  Why should the world seem more than ever empty when one has just gained the treasure of a living and darling child?

The saddening effect in her own case was owing in part, no doubt, to anxiety occasioned by the fatal illness of her husband’s eldest sister, to whom she was tenderly attached.  The following letter was written under the pressure of this anxiety: 

To Miss Thurston, New Bedford, Jan. 31, 1847

I dare say the idea of Lizzy Payson with a baby seems quite funny to you, as it does to many of the Portland girls; but I assure you it doesn’t seem in the least funny to me, but as natural as life and I may add, as wonderful, almost.  She is a nice little plump creature, with a fine head of dark hair which I take some comfort in brushing round a quill to make it curl, and a pair of intelligent eyes, either black or blue, nobody knows which.  I find the care of her very wearing, and have cried ever so many times from fatigue and anxiety, but now I am getting a little better and she pays me for all I do.  She is a sweet, good little thing, her chief fault being a tendency to dissipation and sitting up late o’ nights.  The ladies of our church have made her a beautiful little wardrobe, fortunately for me.

I had a lot of company all summer; my sister, her husband and boy, Mr. Stearns and Anna, Mother Prentiss, Julia Willis, etc.  I had also my last visit from Abby, whom I little thought then I should never see again.  Our happiness in our little one has been checked by our constant anxiety with regard to Abby’s health, and it is very hard now for me to give up one who has become in every sense a sister, and not even to have the privilege of bidding her farewell.  George went down about a week since and will remain till all is over.  I do not even know that while I write she is yet living.  She had only one wish remaining and that was to see George, and she was quite herself the day of his arrival, as also the day following, and able to say all she desired.  Since then she has been rather unconscious of what was passing, and I fervently trust that by this time her sufferings are over and that she is where she longed and prayed to be. [1] You can have no idea how alike are the emotions occasioned by a birth and a death in the family.  They seem equally solemn to me and I am full of wonder at the mysterious new world into which I have been thrown.  I used to think that the change I saw in young, giddy girls when they became mothers, was owing to suffering and care wearing upon the spirits, but I see now that its true source lies far deeper.  My brother H. has been married a couple of months, so I have one sister more.  I shall be glad when they are all married.  Some sisters seem to feel that their brothers are lost