"In this state of things, my husband left me for a walk to the White Hills. I felt sure that, if pursued with due discretion, it would do him good. He was pretty well, but wanted something to give him a spring before beginning to preach. I had not the least objection to his going, but having watched him so long, so incessantly, I felt very much as a mother does the first night she weans her infant from her. In pursuance of my long-established habit, I set myself the task of preparing for any accident which might befall him, and I believe looked at all the possibilities of the case; so that when the summons actually came for me to attend him at Concord, where he was ill of a fever, it did not take me by surprise. I was, as it were, prepared for it, and could receive it calmly and act coolly. In two hours I was on my way to him, confident in my own strength, for no care of him present could be the weight on my mind which the thought of him absent had been; and the bodily exertion was not as great as I had been for some time making, having been nearly all summer without my _quantum_ of help. I found him very sick, but surrounded by kindness. He soon began to mend, and we jogged homewards. Harriet had been with me, so that I could leave my children without any anxiety; and the journey, and the happiness which accompanied it, did me good. I have been gaining ever since, and Mr. Ware too. I am now so well, that I can walk an hour before breakfast, and into Boston with ease; and to-day I have had the unspeakable joy of hearing my husband perform all the services of the pulpit. This is a point that I have so often thought of as the one blessing which I dared not hope for, and have believed that, if it could be granted, I should have nothing more to ask for, that I hardly know how I feel, now that it is actually granted. One thing more, however, I must ask,--that I may be truly grateful for it.
Happy was it for Mrs. Ware if she _could_ be always prepared for change and trial. For while her life was a favored one, and so regarded by her, few enjoying more in any condition, she was equally alive to all suffering, and seldom knew a long exemption. So far, however, she had been spared all trial in regard to her children. Not that they had been free from sickness, or had caused no solicitude, for there had been much of both; but their lives had been continued, and at this time she was rejoicing in their health. Three of them she had just taken to Milton, to enjoy a week with them at Brush Hill, where she had spent so much of her early life, but where she had not been at all since her children were born. Pleasantly does she contrast her present with her former enjoyment there. Writing to her husband from this place, she says:--"I am enjoying myself much, but find I was quite mistaken in thinking I could turn into Mary Pickard again by the power of association. I do very well under that character through the day, but with nightfall the remembrance of _home_ comes over me; the idea of the husband and child I have left there, and the three chickens who are asleep up stairs, rises before my mind's eye, as so many more blessings than poor Polly could boast, that I resign my pretensions with a very grateful heart. I am sorry, dear Henry, that you could not be a little longer with me here, (among other very disinterested reasons,) that I might read you sundry chapters in the life of that interesting personage just named,--chapters which are written about upon these trees and stone walls, and which no other place could recall. It is very delightful for me to live over those days again, and I am sure my mind will be refreshed by this visit, if my body is not. As to this latter concern, it does as well as I could expect."