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Rh health that sometimes I have had, least my heart should bee drawn from him, and sett upon the world.

"Now I can wait, looking every day when my Saviour shall call for me. Lord, grant that while I live I may doe that service I am able in this frail Body, and bee in continual expectation of my change, and let me never forget thy great Love to my soul so lately expressed, when I could lye down and bequeath my Soul to thee, and Death seem'd no terrible Thing. O, let mee ever see thee, that Art invisible, and I shall not bee unwilling to come, tho: by so rough a messenger."

Through all the long sickness the family life went on unchanged, save in the contracting circle, from which one child and another passed. There was still strength to direct the daily round of household duties, and to listen with quick sympathy to the many who came to her trouble. There was not only the village life with its petty interests, but the larger official one of her husband, in which she shared so far as full knowledge of its details allowed, Simon Bradstreet, like Governor Winthrop, believing strongly in that "inward sight" which made women often clearer judges than men of perplexed and knotty points. Two bits of family life are given in a document still in existence and copied by the New England Historical and Genalogical Register for 1859. To it is appended the full signature of Anne Bradstreet, in a clear, upright hand, of singular distinctness and beauty when compared with much of the penmanship of that period. But one other autograph is in existence. It is evident from the nature of the document, that village life had its infelicities in 1670, quite as fully as