Occasionally Franklin had gone to the home of Mrs. Read, the mother of the unhappy Deborah. His conscience reproached him for his conduct to that good girl. She was always dejected and solitary, and with a broken heart clung to her mother, her only friend. It is doubtful whether she were ever legally married to Rogers. It was rumored that at the time of their marriage, he was the husband of one, if not more wives. If legally married, there was another serious obstacle in her path. Rogers had run away to the West Indies. Rumor alone had announced his death. He might be still living. Franklin's sympathy gradually became excited in her behalf. And at length he proposed that, regardless of all the risks, they should be married. It seems that he had announced to her very distinctly that he had a living child, and very honorably he had decided that that child of dishonor was to be taken home and trained as his own. These were sad nuptials. The world-weary wife knew not but that she had another husband still living, and a stigma, indelible, rested upon Franklin. The marriage took place on the first of September, 1730. It subsequently appears that Rogers, the potter, was really dead. The child was taken home and reared with all possible tenderness and care. It is a little remarkable that nothing is known of what became of the mother of that child. The boy grew up to manhood, espoused the Tory cause, when the Tories were hunting his father to hang him, and by his ungrateful, rebellious conduct, pierced his heart with a thousand empoisoned daggers. Mrs. Franklin proved in all respects an excellent woman, and an admirable wife for her calm, philosophic and unimpassioned husband. Franklin never had a journeyman in his office who performed his functions more entirely to his satisfaction, than his wife discharged her responsible duties. She was always amiable, industrious and thrifty. There was a little shop attached to the printing office which Mrs. Franklin tended. She also aided her husband in folding and distributing the papers, and with a mother's love trained, in the rudiments of education, the child whose mother was lost. Franklin, in his characteristic, kindly appreciation of the services of all who were faithful in his employ, speaks in the following commendatory terms of the industrial excellencies of his wife. When far away dazzled by the splendors, and bewildered by the flattery of European courts, he wrote to her, "It was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed, from head to foot, in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, and that I never was prouder of any dress in my life."