PETER SANFORD.

LETTER LXXI.

TO MRS. LUCY SUMNER.

HARTFORD.

The drama is now closed!  A tragical one it has proved!

How sincerely, my dear Mrs. Sumner, must the friends of our departed Eliza sympathize with each other, and with her afflicted, bereaved parent!

You have doubtless seen the account in the public papers which gave us the melancholy intelligence.  But I will give you a detail of circumstances.

A few days after my last was written, we heard that Major Sanford’s property was attached, and he a prisoner in his own house.  He was the last man to whom we wished to apply for information respecting the forlorn wanderer; yet we had no other resource.  And after waiting a fortnight in the most cruel suspense, we wrote a billet, entreating him, if possible, to give some intelligence concerning her.  He replied that he was unhappily deprived of all means of knowing himself, but hoped soon to relieve his own and our anxiety about her.

In this situation we continued till a neighbor (purposely, we since concluded) sent us a Boston paper.  Mrs. Wharton took it, and unconscious of its contents, observed that the perusal might divert her a few moments.  She read for some time, when it suddenly dropped upon the floor.  She clasped her hands together, and raising her streaming eyes to heaven, exclaimed, “It is the Lord; let him do what he will.  Be still, O my soul, and know that he is God.”

“What, madam,” said I, “can be the matter?” She answered not, but, with inexpressible anguish depicted in her countenance, pointed to the paper.  I took it up, and soon found the fatal paragraph.  I shall not attempt to paint our heartfelt grief and lamentation upon this occasion; for we had no doubt of Eliza’s being the person described, as a stranger, who died, at Danvers, last July.  Her delivery of a child, her dejected state of mind, the marks upon her linen, indeed every circumstance in the advertisement, convinced us, beyond dispute, that it could be no other.  Mrs. Wharton retired immediately to her chamber, where she continued overwhelmed with sorrow that night and the following day.  Such in fact has been her habitual frame ever since; though the endeavors of her friends, who have sought to console her, have rendered her somewhat more conversable.  My testimony of Eliza’s penitence before her departure is a source of comfort to this disconsolate parent.  She fondly cherished the idea that, having expiated her offence by sincere repentance and amendment, her deluded child finally made a happy exchange of worlds.  But the desperate resolution, which she formed and executed, of becoming a fugitive, of deserting her mother’s house and protection, and of wandering and dying among strangers, is a most distressing reflection to her friends; especially to her mother, in whose breast so many painful ideas arise, that she finds it extremely difficult to compose herself to that resignation which she evidently strives to exemplify.