roperty,
except what money I had brought with me; and remained with my parents until
after my mother's decease.

A few months before my father's second marriage, to Mrs. Elizabeth
Patterson Duncan, sister of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patterson of New
York, my little son, about four years of age, was sent away from me, and
put under the care of our family nurse, who had married, and resided in the
northern part of New Hampshire. I had no training for self-support, and my
home I regarded as very precious. The night before my child was taken from
me, I knelt by his side throughout the dark hours, hoping for a vision of
relief from this trial. The following lines are taken from my poem,
"Mother's Darling," written after this separation:--

Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea,
Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll!
Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee,--
Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul.

My second marriage was very unfortunate, and from it I was compelled to ask
for a bill of divorce, which was granted me in the city of Salem,
Massachusetts.

My dominant thought in marrying again was to get back my child, but after
our marriage his stepfather was not willing he should have a home with me.
A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The family to whose care he
was committed very soon removed to what was then regarded as the Far West.

After his removal a letter was read to my little son, informing him that
his mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge a guardian was
appointed him, and I was then informed that my son was lost. Every means
within my power was employed to find him, but without success. We never met
again until he had reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife and two
children, and by a strange providence had learned that his mother still
lived, and came to see me in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile he had served as a volunteer throughout the war for the Union,
and at its expiration was appointed United States Marshal of the Territory
of Dakota.

It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but
the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no
place in the Science of being. It is "as a tale that is told," and "as the
shadow when it declineth." The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to
chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly
from a material, false sense of life and happine