give up the
endeavour. I did not know how ill Lucy was at that time, only
remembered that I owed her a letter for that pretty one you wrote me
at Philadelphia, when Sarah was sick and you acted as her Secretary.
Is there going to be always Somebody sick at the brown house? If I
were to come there now, I wonder should I be allowed to come and see
you in your night-cap--I wonder even do you wear a night-cap? I should
step up, take your little hand, which I daresay is lying outside the
coverlet, give it a little shake; and then sit down and talk all sorts
of stuff and nonsense to you for half an hour; but very kind and
gentle, not so as to make you laugh too much or your little back ache
any more. Did I not tell you to leave off that beecely jimnayshum? I
am always giving fine advice to girls in brown houses, and they
always keep on never minding. It is not difficult to write lying in
bed--this is written not in bed, but on a sofa. If you write the
upright hand it's quite easy; slanting-dicular is not so pleasant,
though. I have just come back from Baltimore and find your mother's
and sister's melancholy letters. I thought to myself, perhaps I might
see them on this very sofa and pictured to myself their 2 kind faces.
Mr. Crampton was going to ask them to dinner, I had made arrangements
to get Sarah nice partners at the ball--Why did dear little Lucy
tumble down at the Gymnasium? Many a pretty plan in life tumbles down
so, Miss Lucy, and falls on its back. But the good of being ill is to
find how kind one's friends are; of being at a pinch (I do not know
whether I may use the expression--whether "pinch" is an indelicate
word in this country; it is used by our old writers to signify
poverty, narrow circumstances, res angusta)--the good of being poor, I
say, is to find friends to help you, I have been both ill and poor,
and found, thank God, such consolation in those evils; and I daresay
at this moment, now you are laid up, you are the person of the most
importance in the whole house--Sarah is sliding about the room with
cordials in her hands and eyes; Libby is sitting quite disconsolate by
the bed (poor Libby! when one little bird fell off the perch, I wonder
the other did not go up and fall off, too!) the expression of sympathy
in Ben's eyes is perfectly heart-rending; even George is quiet; and
your Father, Mother and Uncle (all 3 so notorious for their violence
of temper and language) have actually forgotten to scold. "Ac