But, just at the moment when I thus thought and felt--when I

no longer suffered and no longer inflicted pain--when my wife was

not only virtue in my sight, but love, and beauty, and grace, and

meekness--all that was good and all that was dear besides;--when

my sky was without a cloud, and the evening star shone through the

blue sky upon the green tops of our cottage trees, with the serene

lustre of a May-divinity--just then a thunderbolt fell upon my

dwelling, and blackened the scene for ever.

I had now been three months a resident in M----, and never

had I been more happy--never less apprehensive on the score of my

happiness--when I received a letter from my venerable friend and

patron, the father of William Edgerton.

"My son," he wrote, "is no better than when you left us. We have

every reason to believe him worse. He has a cough, he is very thin,

and there is a flushed spot upon his cheek which seems to his mother

and myself the indubitable sign of vital decay. His frame is very

feeble, and our physician advises travel. Under this counsel he

set off with a favorite servant on Wednesday of last week. He will

make easy stages through Tennessee to the Ohio, will descend into

Mississippi, and return home by way of Alabama. He contemplates

paying you a brief visit. I need not say, dear Clifford, how grateful

I shall be for any kindness which you can show to my poor boy. His

mother particularly invokes it. I should not have deemed it necessary

to say so much, but would have preferred leaving it to William to

make his own communication, were it not that she so particularly

desires it. It may be well to add, that on one subject we are

both very much relieved. We now have reason to believe that our

apprehensions on the score of his morals were without foundation.

It is our present belief that he neither gamed nor drank. This is

a consolation, dear Clifford, though it brings us no nigher to our

wish. It is something to believe that the object of our love is

not worthless; though it adds to the pang that we should feel in

the event of losing him. Our parting would be less easy. For my own

part, I have little hope that his journey will do him any material

benefit. It may prolong his days, but can not, I fear, have any more

decided influence upon his disease. His mother, however, is more

sanguine, and it is perhaps well that she should be so. I know

that when William reaches your neighborhood, you will make it as

cheerful and pleasant to him as possible. The talent of your young

and sweet wife--her endowments in painting and music--have always

been a great solace to him. His tastes you know are very much like

hers. I trust she will exercise them, and be happy in ministering

to the comfort of one, who will not, I fear, trespass very long

upon any earthly ministry. My dear Clifford, I know that you will

do your utmost in behalf of your earliest friend, and I will waste

no more words in unnecessary solicitation."




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