Still, in the eye of the world, she was much better situated than she could possibly be with us.  The heart of the parent could alone understand the change.

So sensible was her father of this alteration, that the first time he paid us a visit he went and brought home his child.

“If she remain so long away from us, at her tender years,” he said, “she will cease to love us.  All the wealth in the world would not compensate me for the love of my child.”

The removal of my sister rendered my separation from my husband doubly lonely and irksome.  Sometimes the desire to see and converse with him would press so painfully on my heart that I would get up in the night, strike a light, and sit down and write him a long letter, and tell him all that was in my mind; and when I had thus unburdened my spirit, the letter was committed to the flames, and after fervently commending him to the care of the Great Father of mankind, I would lay down my throbbing head on my pillow beside our first-born son, and sleep tranquilly.

It is a strange fact that many of my husband’s letters to me were written at the very time when I felt those irresistible impulses to hold communion with him.  Why should we be ashamed to admit openly our belief in this mysterious intercourse between the spirits of those who are bound to each other by the tender ties of friendship and affection, when the experience of every day proves its truth?  Proverbs, which are the wisdom of ages collected into a few brief words, tell us in one pithy sentence that “if we talk of the devil he is sure to appear.”  While the name of a long-absent friend is in our mouth, the next moment brings him into our presence.  How can this be, if mind did not meet mind, and the spirit had not a prophetic consciousness of the vicinity of another spirit, kindred with its own?  This is an occurrence so common that I never met with any person to whom it had not happened; few will admit it to be a spiritual agency, but in no other way can they satisfactorily explain its cause.  If it were a mere coincidence, or combination of ordinary circumstances, it would not happen so often, and people would not be led to speak of the long-absent always at the moment when they are just about to present themselves before them.  My husband was no believer in what he termed my fanciful, speculative theories; yet at the time when his youngest boy and myself lay dangerously ill, and hardly expected to live, I received from him a letter, written in great haste, which commenced with this sentence:  “Do write to me, dear S—–­, when you receive this.  I have felt very uneasy about you for some days past, and am afraid that all is not right at home.”

Whence came this sudden fear?  Why at that particular time did his thoughts turn so despondingly towards those so dear to him?  Why did the dark cloud in his mind hang so heavily above his home?  The burden of my weary and distressed spirit had reached him; and without knowing of our sufferings and danger, his own responded to the call.