Mr. Arms’ health had now become so seriously impaired that he had determined to seek the benefit of the Hot Springs of Arkansas, and, after he left, I secured the services of Miss Josie Tyson as traveling companion, and started for the lead mining regions of Wisconsin, making Mineral Point my headquarters.  This town is the shipping-place for the ore, and I was surprised to find it with several thousand inhabitants—­abounding in wealth and greatly advanced in culture, while it became afterward endeared to me by the extreme kindness of its people.  My little jaunts from this place by private conveyance made a pleasant variety in the monotony of travel, after which we visited Mendota and South Western Iowa, where we spent a delightful summer.

We returned to Morrison the day before Thanksgiving, and I lingered two weeks with Hattie.  Surely “blessings brighten as they take their flight,” and with us the sadly, blissful moments flew all too fast, both silently impressed that it might be our last communion.  In my absence her delicate and refined taste had designed a gold ring which she had made as a parting gift.  As she placed it upon my finger she leaned her head upon my shoulder and wept bitterly, telling me in tenderest tones her sorrow at leaving one who so much needed her, pleading with me to have patience to bear the separation.  These tears from fountains deep and pure must have been as potent at the throne of grace as the one so graphically described by Sterne; even that of the Recording Angel, who, in the bright Empyrean, dropped a tear upon the word left by the Accusing Spirit “and blotted it out forever.”

Physicians agreeing that she might live at least a year, I yielded to her persuasion to go South for the benefit of my own health, and—­

    “In silence we parted, for neither could speak;
    But the trembling lip and the fast fading cheek
    To both were betraying what neither could tell;
    How deep was the pang of that silent farewell.”

After a short season devoted to the arrangement of home matters, I started South via the Chicago and Alton Railroad.  At Dwight, Illinois, we stopped at the McPherson House, where we had a delightful suite of rooms.  The proprietor had attained to the years allotted to man, yet was so wonderfully preserved that he seemed a stalwart man of fifty.  He spent an evening in our parlor, feasting us with the richness of his reminiscence.  He had served in both the regular army and navy, his travels leading him to lands afar, and his naval service landing him at almost every port in the world, yet he had never carried a more dangerous weapon than a penknife, always having been unharmed and unmolested.  His creed consisted of six words, viz.:  “Deal mercifully, walk humbly before God.”  These “articles of faith,” simple as the “new commandment” which Christ gave to his disciples, I give unto you, and beautiful as the “Golden Rule” of Confucius, were certainly in my own case carried out both “in the letter and the spirit;” for he at first peremptorily refused any remuneration for our elegant accommodations, but, finding me inexorable, very reluctantly consented to accept half pay.