Page:Letters of Life.djvu/257

Rh thus honored me was of the highest respectability, their neighbor and friend. He possessed intellectual tastes, an accomplished education, and had given proof of his domestic virtues during a conjugal union of fifteen years. They also expressed apprehensions that my present profession, though delightful and prosperous, might eventually make inroads on my health. They adduced several occasions where its inevitable exposure to changes and inclemency of weather had produced colds of peculiar severity and obstinacy. Now I could take leave of the employment honorably, and without shadow of blame. We should permanently dwell near each other, and be sundered no more. They held me closely to their heart, as they gave their advice that this should be viewed as a favoring providence of our Heavenly Benefactor.

But the parents—the parents, already looking with hope to the next vacation, when the sole idol of their thoughts and prayers should come with her lamp of love to enlighten their lonely dwelling—shall they be told that she is making to herself a new home?—that she is meditating to sojourn with them no more?

It was decided that the case should be simply and circumstantially stated to them, with the assurance that I had not committed myself in any form, but awaited their decision, by which I would be implicitly guided, and begging that they would take full leisure to deliberate. I wrote the letter, and then led a life of