"_November 2._ I add a line to say that I am quite well, therefore do not feel anxious about me. There are very many cases of the fever in the village, and as I am almost the only person in it who is not afraid of infection, I still have full employment in assisting the poor sufferers. My cousin's little niece is still very ill. I have indeed been wonderfully preserved and strengthened. Heaven save me from presumption, but I cannot help feeling that I could not have lived through all that I have, unless God had protected me.
We need not attempt to add any thing to this simple and affecting narrative of events that seem to belong to a more remote place and period than England and our own day. With all their naturalness and the stamp of reality, it would not be difficult--as indeed has been done--to clothe them with the drapery of fiction, and weave them into a romantic, improbable tale.
But the tale is not all told. The scene shifts at this point, only to be succeeded by another not unlike, nor far apart. Near the end of November, Mary was released from present duty at Osmotherly, took a reluctant leave--yes, with her generous and clinging affections, a _reluctant_ leave--of the family in which she had closed the eyes of five members, and was carried by eager, anxious friends to Penrith. There, in the bosom of a charming household already known and dear to her, every thing within and without presented as strong a contrast to the situation she had just left, as words could express. Her own words give us some idea of it, in the first letter she wrote after leaving a place associated "with images of danger and death," and leaving it, as she supposed, for ever. But the very next letter after that surprises us with the old date of "Osmotherly"; and we find that hardly a month had passed before she was recalled to the same spot, the same painful responsibilities, and far greater danger than before, as the result proved. But again we leave her to tell her own story.
"_Penrith, Cumberland, November 29, 1825._
"After all my melancholy letters from Osmotherly, you will be glad to receive one of another date, and under happier circumstances. My last letter was just after the death of the dear little boy, and I then thought I should be able to leave there very shortly; but it was not until the 26th, (after I had been there twelve weeks instead of the three which I intended when I went,) that I could arrange matters so that I could give up my charge conscientiously; and, after all my efforts, I could not succeed in settling the business for my poor, unfortunate cousin. I left it, however, in a fair way for completion, clothed the dear little orphan for the winter, and placed him with his aunt, making all the arrangements which my limited means allowed for his future support; and notwithstanding the incessant trial which I had there, I assure you it was not without many painful feelings that I took leave of the place, for ever. I had been for the last five weeks constantly with my aunt, and could not bear to leave her in the solitary situation to which she was reduced by the death of so many of her family. My dear little Jamie had become an object of affection to me, heightened to an extreme degree, since he was, like myself, left without parents or brother or sister. I longed to take him as my own, for he is a child of very uncommon capacity, and I fear will not have the education which he deserves. But I could only commit him in faith to Him who is the Father of the fatherless, who will not suffer even the least of his creatures to want his care. I think I never shall forget his screams of agony when he saw me drive away; I thought his little heart would burst. But childish sorrow is soon over, and he will forget me long before I shall cease to love him.