My wife is superstitious.  Strong and capable as she is, she has regarded this sudden taking off of our first-born as a sign that certain words uttered by her on her marriage day, unhappily known to you and, as I take it, to James also, have been remembered by the righteous God above us.  This is a weakness which I cannot combat.  Can you, who alone of all the world beside know both it and its cause, help me by a renewed friendship, whose cheerful and natural character may gradually make her forget?  If so, come like old neighbours, and dine with us on our wedding day.  If God sees that we have buried the past and are ready to forgive each other the faults of our youth, perhaps He will further spare this good woman.  I think she will be able to bear it.  She has great strength except where a little child is concerned.  That alone can henceforth stir the deepest recesses of her heart.

After this, a gap of years.  One, two, three, four, five children were laid away to rest in Portchester churchyard, then Philemon and she came to Sutherlandtown; but not till after a certain event had occurred, best made known by this last letter to Philemon: 

Dearest husband: 

Our babe is born, our sixth and our dearest, and the reproach of its first look had to be met by me alone.  Oh, why did I leave you and come to this great Boston where I have no friend but Mrs. Sutherland?  Did I think I could break the spell of fate or providence by giving birth to my last darling among strangers?  I shall have to do something more than that if I would save this child to our old age.  It is borne in upon me like fate that never will a child prosper at my breast or survive the clasp of my arms.  If it is to live it must be reared by others.  Some woman who has not brought down the curse of Heaven upon her by her own blasphemies must nourish the tender frame and receive the blessing of its growing love.  Neither I nor you can hope to see recognition in our babe’s eye.  Before it can turn upon us with love, it will close in its last sleep and we will be left desolate.  What shall we do, then, with this little son?  To whose guardianship can we entrust it?  Do you know a man good enough or a woman sufficiently tender?  I do not, but if God wills that our little Frederick should live, He will raise up someone.  By the pang of possible separation already tearing my heart, I believe that He will raise up someone.  Meanwhile I do not dare to kiss the child, lest I should blight it.  He is so sturdy, Philemon, so different from all the other five.

I open this to add that Mrs. Sutherland has just been in—­with her five-weeks-old infant.  His father is away, too, and has not yet seen his boy; and this is their first after ten years of marriage.  Oh, that my future opened before me as brightly as hers!

The next letter opens with a cry: 

Philemon!  Come to me, Philemon!  I have done what I threatened.  I have made the sacrifice.  Our child is no longer ours, and now, perhaps, he may live.  But oh, my breaking heart! my empty arms!  Help me to bear my desolation, for it is for life.  We will never have another child.