_8th Mo. 21th_. To her sister F.T. she writes, the day before her
marriage,--
"I am still a wonder to myself,--so thankful for dear
mother's cheerfulness, and for the kindness and love of
all around. I have taken leave of nearly all. Last
evening we had a nice walk. Then for the first time I
felt as if the claims of past, present, and future were
perfectly and peacefully adjusted, to my great comfort."
The walk to which this allusion refers is very fresh in the
remembrance of her sister and of her (intended) husband, who
accompanied her. Her manner was strikingly calm and affectionate; and
as they returned home, after a pause in the conversation, she said,
taking a hand of each,--
"I have heard of some people when they are
dying feeling no struggle on going from one world to
the other; and I was thinking that I felt the same
between you. I don't know how it may be at last."
Strangely impressive were these words at the time; and when we
remember that she never saw that sister again after the morrow, can we
doubt that this preparation was permitted to soften the bitterness
of the time, so near at hand, when this should have proved to be the
final parting on earth?
In looking back to this time, there is a sweet conviction of the peace
which was then granted her, which did seem something like a foretaste
of the joys of the better home which was even then opening before her
and upon which her pure spirit had so loved to dwell.
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