From a letter to one of her sisters.

  Ipswich, 3d Month.

My mind has been so full of you to-day that, though it is First-day evening, I must spend a few minutes in this way before I go to bed.  The thought of father’s going homewards to-morrow and seeing you all, seems a stirring up and drawing tight of the interests and connecting bonds of our scattered race.  Oh, I do dearly love you in my inmost heart,—­though some of my letters may seem as if I had lost some home affections to root amongst strangers; but surely the new scenes of life which I have witnessed, since that cold frosty morning when I left you, have tended to make me value more than ever that precious treasure of household love.  Oh, what were life without it? a wilderness indeed! and well is it worth all the pangs which it may cost us in this cold world.  It is cheering to think of them as caused by contact of something warm within, as with the cold without; and far better it is to bear, than to be cooled down to the temperature of earth’s raw air.  Thou wilt wonder perhaps at my writing in this way; but with me, though I may seem cold and dull in the common way, there comes a day, every now and then, when I find

    “New depths of love, in measure unsuspected,
    Ties closer than I knew were round my heart.”—­

And though they are saddened by many a regret for neglects and omissions and commissions toward you all, and that old petrifying selfishness which only grace can cure, I would not be without such days, and almost thank “each wrench which has detected how thoroughly and deeply dear you are.”  I can hardly tell you what the thought of leaving N. and F. is to me, but this dark day begins to shadow itself.

* * * Poor dear old A.G.!  What a change from her dark corner to everlasting day!—­but not less from a kingly palace, if we knew the truth; and her shadowy abode had more light than many a palace, if we knew the truth of that too.

She remarks in her Journal, after her return home:—­

I stayed at Ipswich three weeks after the birth of my precious little niece, Frances Elizabeth; rejoicing in her daily growth, and calm trustful fearlessness—­a lesson which nothing ever preached to me so loudly before.  Respecting my spiritual state at Ipswich, I would say that great blessings, and I would fear great ingratitude, must be acknowledged.  Some evening hours in my chamber were exceeding sweet, and some meetings solemn indeed. * * * I returned in rich and flowing peace.  Many a lesson I had through my four months’ absence, but none like that which awaited my return.  My father met me at Plymouth; we reached home about eleven o’clock at night, and went at once to the chamber, where four months previously I last heard the voice of my uncle, and, though he still breathed, I was not to hear it again.  He had sunk gradually for weeks, and now, though