y dear,
it is a nice thing to say nothing, when thou hast nothing to say." Her
husband was proud of her, and always manifested great deference for her
opinion. She suffered much anxiety on account of the perils to which he
was often exposed in his contests with slaveholders and kidnappers; and
for many years, the thought was familiar to her mind that she might one
day see him brought home a corpse. While the yellow fever raged in
Philadelphia, she had the same anxiety concerning his fearless devotion
to the victims of that terrible disease, who were dying by hundreds
around them. But she had a large and sympathizing heart, and she never
sought to dissuade him from what he considered the path of duty. When
one of his brothers was stricken with the fever, and the family with
whom he resided were afraid to shelter him, she proposed to have him
brought under their own roof, where he was carefully nursed till he
died. She was more reluctant to listen to his urgent entreaties that she
would retire into the country with the children, and remain with them
beyond the reach of contagion; for her heart was divided between the
husband of her youth and the nurslings of her bosom. But his anxiety
concerning their children was so great, that she finally consented to
pursue the course most conducive to his peace of mind; and he was left
in the city with a colored domestic to superintend his household
affairs. Through this terrible ordeal of pestilence he passed unscathed,
though his ever ready sympathy brought him into frequent contact with
the dying and the dead.

Besides this public calamity, which darkened the whole city for a time,
Friend Hopper shared the common lot of humanity in the sad experiences
of private life. Several of his children died at that attractive age,
when the bud of infancy is blooming into childhood. Relatives and
friends crossed the dark river to the unknown shore. On New Year's day,
1797, his mother departed from this world at fifty-six years old. In
1818, his father died at seventy-five years of age. His physical vigor
was remarkable. When he had weathered seventy winters, he went to visit
his eldest son, and being disappointed in meeting the stage to return,
as he expected, he walked home, a distance of twenty-eight miles. At
that advanced age, he could rest one hand on his cane and the other on a
fence, and leap over as easily as a boy. He had long flowing black hair,
which fell in ringlets on his shoulder