is,
and you will get rid of another morsel in reading it. So we'll patch
each other up, and limp along together, and by and by go where there it
no limping and no patching.

The new serial, her Bible-readings, and painting, with visits to sick-
rooms and to the house of mourning, during the early half of this year,
left little time for correspondence. Her letters were few and brief;
but they are marked, as was her life, by unusual quietness and depth of
feeling. Her delight was still to speak in them a helpful and cheering
word to souls struggling with their own imperfections, or with trials
of the way. A single extract will illustrate the gentle wisdom of her
counsels:

I think there is such a thing as peace of conscience even in this
life. I do not mean careless peace, or heedless peace; I mean calm
consciousness of an understanding, so to speak, between the soul and its
Lord. A wife, for instance, may say and do things to her husband that
show she is human; yet, at the same time, the two may live together
loyally, and be happy. And unless a Christian is aware of having on hand
an idol, dearer than God, I see no reason why he should not live in
peace, even while aware that he is not yet finished (perfect). We love
God more than we are aware; when He slays us we trust in Him, when He
strikes us we kiss His hand.

Her own mood at this time was singularly grave and pensive. She felt
more and more keenly the moral puzzle and contradictions of existence.
"From beginning to end, in every aspect," she wrote to a friend, "life
grows more mysterious to me, not to say queer--for that is not what I
mean. Such strange things are all the time happening, and even good
people doing and saying things that nearly drive one wild.... We live in
a mixed state, in a kind of see-saw: we go up and then we go down; go
down and then fly up." Still this strange, ever-changing mystery of
life, although it sometimes perplexed her in the extreme, did not make
her unhappy. "I have great sources of enjoyment," she adds, "and do
enjoy a good deal; infinitely more than I deserve."

Early in June she and the younger children went to Dorset. On reaching
there, she wrote to her husband:

Here we are, sitting by the fire in our dear little parlor. We made a
very comfortable journey to Manchester, but the ride from there here was
rather cheerless and cold, as they forgot to send wraps. The neighbors
had sent in various good things, and the strawberr