ought, as
would now permit you to come home and spend (as you say) the evening
with your friends in ease and quiet, that now such a dreadful malady
should attack you! My heart is ready to burst with grief at the thought.
How many hours have I lain awake on nights thinking what excruciating
pains you might then be encountering, while I, poor, useless, and
worthless worm, was permitted to be at ease! Oh, that it was in my power
to mitigate or alleviate the anguish I know you must endure!"

When she heard of his arrival in Philadelphia she wrote:

"I long so much to see you that I should immediately seek for some one
that would accompany me, but my daughter is in a poor state of health
and gone into the country to try to get a little better, and I am in a
strait between two; but the comfortable reflection that you are at home
among all your dear children, and no more seas to cross, will be
constantly pleasing to me till I am permitted to enjoy the happiness of
seeing and conversing with you."

The tenderness and charity of Franklin for the many members of his own
family still revealed his heart. "I tenderly love you," he wrote to
Jane--Jenny--"for the care of our father in his sickness."

One of his sisters, Mrs. Dowse, whose family had died, insisted upon
living alone, on account of her love for the place that had been her
home. Many other men would have compelled her removal, but there is
nothing more beautiful in all Franklin's letters than the way that he
advised Jenny how to treat this matter. He had been told that this
venerable woman would have her own way.

"As _having their own way_ is one of the greatest comforts of life to
old people, I think their friends should endeavor to accommodate them in
that as well as anything else. When they have long lived in a house, it
becomes natural to them; they are almost as closely connected with it as
the tortoise with his shell; they die if you tear them out. Old folks
and old trees, if you remove them, 'tis ten to one that you kill them,
so let our good old sister be no more importuned on that head; we are
growing old fast ourselves, and shall expect the same kind of
indulgences; if we give them, we shall have a right to receive them in
our turn."

Jane Mecom--the "Jenny" of Franklin's young life--had one great desire
as the years went on: it was, to meet her brother once more and to
review the past with him.

"I will one day go to Philadelphia and give him a great s