ristocratic for such doings as
_help_ would make those who live in New Haven endure. Ardently as I am
attached to New Haven the plague of _help_ will probably always prevent
my living there again, for I would not put up with 'the world turned
upside down,' and therefore should give offense to their _helpinesses_,
and so lead a very uncomfortable life."

From this our suspicion is strengthened that the servant question belongs
to no time or country, but is and always has been a perennial and
ubiquitous problem.

"_May 11, 1888._ I feel very anxious about you, dear mother. I heard
through Mr. Van Rensselaer that you were better, and I hope that you will
yet see many good days on earth and be happy in the affection of your
children and friends here, before you go, a little before them, to join
those in heaven."

While expressing anxiety about his mother's health, he could not have
considered her condition critical, for on the 18th of May he writes
again:--

"I did hope so to make my arrangements as to have been with you in New
Haven yesterday and to-day, but I am so situated as to be unable to leave
the city without great detriment to my business.... Unless, therefore,
there is something of pressing necessity, prudence would dictate to me to
take advantage of this season, which has generally been the most
profitable to others in the profession, and see if I cannot get my share
of something to do. It is a great struggle with me to know what I ought
to do. Your situation and that of the family draw me to New Haven; the
state of my finances keeps me here. I will come, however, if, on the
whole, you think it best."

Again are the records silent as to whether the visit was paid or not, but
his anxiety was well founded, for his mother's appointed time had come,
and just ten days later, on the 28th of May, 1828, she died at the age of
sixty-two.

Thus within the space of three years the hand of death had removed the
three beings whom Morse loved best. His mother, while, as we have seen,
stern and uncompromising in her Puritan principles, yet possessed the
faculty of winning the love as well as the respect of her family and
friends. Dr. Todd said of her home: "An orphan myself and never having a
home, I have gone away from Dr. Morse's house in tears, feeling that such
a home must be more like heaven than anything of which I could conceive."

Mr. Prime, in his biography of Morse, thus pays tribute to her:--

"Two persons