And I hate to be the
means of your resigning from the Consulate."
We also went to Southport for my mother's health. Here she writes:--
MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--The Doctor will not let me walk more than thirty
minutes at a time. Here there are no carriages with horses, but with
donkeys, sometimes two or three abreast. They will go out to the edge
of the deep sea. The donkeys walk, unless they take it into their
heads to run a little. One day I mounted Una and Julian on donkeys,
while Rose and I were in the carriage. One little girl belabored the
two saddled donkeys, and one guided my two. They were weather-beaten,
rosy girls, one with a very sweet young face. The elder conversed with
me awhile, and said the young gentleman's donkey was twenty years old
and belonged to her brother, who would surely die if they bartered it,
"because it is his, you know." She smiled reluctantly when I smiled at
her, as if she had too much care to allow herself to smile often, but
evidently she was a sound-hearted, healthy, contented child, ready to
shine back when shone upon.
Mr. Hawthorne now knows what has been my danger, and he is watchful of
every breath I draw; and I would not exchange his guardianship for
that of any winged angel of the hosts. God has given him to me for my
angel, only He makes him visible to my eye, as He does not every one's
angel. It seems as if even / never knew what felicity was till now. As
the years develop my soul and faculties, I am better conscious of the
pure amber in which I find myself imbedded.
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