I have written to her to come, and in such a way that I think she will
understand me to mean what I say. I have not seen her since I was a
child. I know that she was very much younger than my mother; that she
spent her young ladyhood teaching at the South;--grandfather had enough
with which to support her, but I have heard it said that she preferred
to take care of herself;--that she finally married a poor minister,
whose sermons people liked, but whose coat was shockingly shabby; that
she left the comforts and elegances and friends of New England to go to
the West and bury herself in an unheard-of little place with him (I
think she must have loved him); that he afterwards settled in Lawrence;
that there, after they had been married some childless years, this
little Faith was born; and that there Uncle Forceythe died about three
years ago; that is about all I know of her. I suppose her share of
Grandfather Burleigh’s little property supports her respectably. I
understand that she has been living a sort of missionary life among her
husband’s people since his death, and that they think they shall never
see her like again. It is they who keep her from coming home again,
Uncle Calvin’s wife told me once; they and one other thing,--her
husband’s grave.
I hope she will come to see me. I notice one strange thing about her
letter. She does not use the ugly words “death” and “dying.” I don’t
know exactly what she put in their places, but something that had a
pleasant sound.
“To be happy because Roy is happy.” I wonder if she really thinks it is
possible.