The mourning border
alarmed me much. I feared that dread visitant, before whose coming
every household trembles, had invaded your hearth and taken from you
perhaps a child, perhaps something dearer still. The loss you have
actually sustained is painful, but so much _less_ painful than what I
had anticipated, that to read your letter was to be greatly relieved.
Still, I know what Mrs. Williams will feel. We can have but one
father, but one mother, and when either is gone, we have lost what
can never be replaced. Offer her, under this affliction, my sincere
sympathy. I can well imagine the cloud these sad tidings would cast
over your young cheerful family. Poor little Dick's exclamation and
burst of grief are most naive and natural; he felt the sorrow of a
child--a keen, but, happily, a transient pang. Time will, I trust,
ere long restore your own and your wife's serenity and your
children's cheerfulness.
'I mentioned, I think, that we had one or two visitors at Haworth
lately; amongst them were Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth and his lady.
Before departing they exacted a promise that I would visit them at
Gawthorpe Hall, their residence on the borders of East Lancashire. I
went reluctantly, for it is always a difficult and painful thing to
me to meet the advances of people whose kindness I am in no position
to repay.
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