pauper. How am I to comprehend this? How am I to
have it? Why am I robbed, and who is benefited?

Ah, well, Susy died at home. She had that privilege. Her dying eyes
rested upon nothing that was strange to them, but only upon things which
they had known and loved always and which had made her young years glad;
and she had you, and Sue, and Katy, and John, and Ellen. This was happy
fortune--I am thankful that it was vouchsafed to her. If she had died
in another house-well, I think I could not have borne that. To us, our
house was not unsentient matter--it had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to
see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies; it was
of us, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the
peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its
face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome--and we could
not enter it unmoved. And could we now, oh, now, in spirit we should
enter it unshod.

I am trying to add to the "assets" which you estimate so generously.
No, I am not. The thought is not in my mind. My purpose is other. I am
working, but it is for the sake of the work--the "surcease of sorrow"
that is found there. I work all the days, and trouble vanishes away when
I use that magic. This book will not long stand between it and me, now;
but that is no matter, I have many unwritten books to fly to for my
preservation; the interval between the finishing of this one and
the beginning of the next will not be more than an hour, at most.
Continuances, I mean; for two of them are already well along--in fact
have reached exactly the same stage in their journey: 19,000 words each.
The present one will contain 180,000 words--130,000 are done. I am well
protected; but Livy! She has nothing in the world to turn to; nothing
but housekeeping, and doing things for the children and me. She does not
see people, and cannot; books have lost their interest for her. She
sits solitary; and all the day, and all the days, wonders how it all
happened, and why. We others were always busy with our affairs, but
Susy was her comrade--had to be driven from her loving
persecutions--sometimes at 1 in the morning. To Livy the persecutions
were welcome. It was heaven to her to be plagued like that. But it is
ended now. Livy stands so in need of help; and none among us all could
help her like you.

Some day you and I will walk again, Joe, and talk. I hope so. We could
have such talk