mbered by her; and still I am sure I
shall not forget her soon. Try if you cannot remind her of that debt she
owes me--and be sure you do not interfere to prevent her paying it.

I regret to learn that you have resolved to not return to Illinois.
I shall be very lonesome without you. How miserably things seem to be
arranged in this world! If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and
if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the
loss. I did hope she and you would make your home here; but I own I have
no right to insist. You owe obligations to her ten thousand times
more sacred than you can owe to others, and in that light let them be
respected and observed. It is natural that she should desire to remain
with her relatives and friends. As to friends, however, she could not
need them anywhere: she would have them in abundance here.

Give my kind remembrance to Mr. Williamson and his family, particularly
Miss Elizabeth; also to your mother, brother, and sisters. Ask little
Eliza Davis if she will ride to town with me if I come there again. And
finally, give Fanny a double reciprocation of all the love she sent me.
Write me often, and believe me

Yours forever, LINCOLN.

P. S. Poor Easthouse is gone at last. He died awhile before day this
morning. They say he was very loath to die....

L.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED--ON MARRIAGE CONCERNS

SPRINGFIELD, February 25,1842.

DEAR SPEED:--I received yours of the 12th written the day you went down
to William's place, some days since, but delayed answering it till I
should receive the promised one of the 16th, which came last night.
I opened the letter with intense anxiety and trepidation; so much so,
that, although it turned out better than I expected, I have hardly yet,
at a distance of ten hours, become calm.

I tell you, Speed, our forebodings (for which you and I are peculiar)
are all the worst sort of nonsense. I fancied, from the time I received
your letter of Saturday, that the one of Wednesday was never to come,
and yet it did come, and what is more, it is perfectly clear, both from
its tone and handwriting, that you were much happier, or, if you think
the term preferable, less miserable, when you wrote it than when you
wrote the last one before. You had so obviously improved at the
very time I so much fancied you would have grown worse. You say that
something indescribably horrible and alarming still haunts you. You will
not say that th