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 admit of." Still again, in a letter to her sister, March 11, in remarking upon the sacrifice of so long separation from her husband, Mrs. Whitman said: "I can see no earthly inducement sufficiently paramount to cause me voluntarily to take upon myself such a painful trial. … But there is one object, our blessed Saviour, for whose sake, I trust, both you as well as we are willing if called to it, to suffer all things. It was for Him, for the advancement of His cause, that I could say to my beloved husband, 'Go; take all the time necessary to accomplish His work; and the Lord go with and bless you.

If we compare the situation and purpose revealed by these contemporary private letters from all the parties concerned with the accounts published by Spalding and Gray from which the Legend of Marcus Whitman has been derived it is clear that Spalding's account of the transaction is purely fictitious. There is not a hint of the Walla Walla dinner nor any place for it in the chain of events, and on the other hand Spalding's narrative suppresses the real facts. More than that, "the colony from the Red River" over the "glad news" of whose approach there was such rejoicing, arrived the year before,