to get
possession of my sister's private papers. Everything passed off nicely;
I burned a large amount and brought away a trunk full, a part of which I
have been reading with deep interest. Her journals date back to the age
of fifteen, though to read the early ones you would never dream of her
being less than twenty or thirty. She was a wonderful woman, and as
I found such ample material for a memorial of her life, I felt half
tempted to carry out her husband's wishes and complete one. But on the
whole I do not think I shall. You can imagine how my soul has been
stirred by the whole thing; the farewell to the familiar objects of
my childhood, the sense of a new race taking possession of her
conservatory, her shells, her minerals, her pictures, her German,
French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Hebrew and Greek library--dear me! but
I need not enlarge on it to you. And how stupid it is not to forget it
all alongside of her ten years in heaven!

[1] "Especially after a time of some special seasons of grace, and some
special new supplies of grace, received in such seasons, (as after the
holy sacrament), then will he set on most eagerly, when he knows of the
richest booty. The pirates that let the ships pass as they go by empty,
watch them well, when they return richly laden; so doth this great
Pirate."--Archbishop Leighton, on I Peter, v. 8.

[2] "Cynegvius, a valiant Athenian, being in a great sea-fight against
the Medes, espying a ship of the enemy's well manned, and fitted for
service, when no other means would serve, he grasped it with his hands
to maintain the fight; and when his right hand was cut off, he held
close with his left; but both hands being taken off, he held it fast
with his teeth."

[3] The following lines found on one of its blank pages were written
perhaps at this time:

Precious companion! rendered dear
By trial-hours of many a year,
I love thee with a tenderness
Which words have never yet defined.

When tired and sad and comfortless,
With aching heart and weary mind,
How oft thy words of promise stealing
Like Gilead's balm-drops--soft and low.
Have touched the heart with power of healing,
And soothed the sharpest hour of woe.

[4] A friend writing to Mrs. Prentiss, under date of September 24, 1872,
refers to Lady Stanley's high praise of The Story Lizzie Told, and then
adds: "You must be so accustomed to friendly 'notices'--so almost bored
by them--that I hesitate to