affliction in the loss of my children as I do
when death enters the house of a friend. Then I feel that _I can't have
it so._ But why should I think I know better than my Divine Master what
is good for me, or good for those I love! Dear Carrie,'! trust that in
this hour of sorrow you have with you that Presence, before which alone
sorrow and sighing flee away. _God_ is left; _Christ_ is left; sickness,
accident, death can not touch you here. Is not this a blissful
thought?... As I sit at my desk my eye is attracted by the row of books
before me, and what a comment on life are their very titles: "Songs in
the Night," "Light on Little Graves," "The Night of Weeping," "The Death
of Little Children," "The Folded Lamb," "The Broken Bud," these have
strayed one by one into my small enclosure, to speak peradventure a word
in season unto my weariness. And yet, dear Carrie, this is not all of
life. You and I have tasted some of its highest joys, as well as its
deepest sorrows, and it has in reserve for us only just what is best for
us. May sorrow bring us both nearer to Christ! I can almost fancy my
little Eddy has taken your little Maymee by the hand and led her to the
bosom of Jesus. How strange our children, our own little infants, have
seen Him in His glory, whom we are only yet longing for and struggling
towards!

If it will not frighten you to own a Unitarian book, there is one called
"Christian Consolation" by Rev. A. P. Peabody, that I think you would
find very profitable. I see nothing, or next to nothing, Unitarian
in it, while it is _full_ of rich, holy experience. One sermon on
"Contingent Events and Providence" touches your case exactly.

No event of special importance marked the year 1855. She spent the month
of July among her friends in Portland, and the next six weeks at the
Ocean House on Cape Elizabeth. This was one of her favorite places of
rest. She never tired of watching the waves and their "multitudinous
laughter," of listening to the roar of the breakers, or climbing the
rocks and wandering along the shore in quest of shells and sea-grasses.
In gathering and pressing the latter, she passed many a happy hour. In
August of this year appeared one of her best children's books, _Henry
and Bessie; or, What they Did in the Country._

* * * * *

IV.

A Memorable Year. Lines on the Anniversary of Eddy's Death. Extracts
from her Journal. _Little Susy's Six Teachers._ The Teacher