"Mr. Morse now comprehended the mistake which the petitioner was laboring under, and attempted to explain the process of conveying important information along the wires. The letter-writer listened a few moments, impatiently, and then rolled her burning epistle into a ball, in the excitement under which she labored, and thrust it into her bosom. "'It's too slow!' she finally exclaimed; 'it's too slow! and my heart will break before William knows I forgive him; and you are a cruel man, Mr. Morse,' said the fair creature, the tears coming into her eyes, 'that you won't let me travel by the telegraph to see William.' And, full of emotion, she left the office." All these years Morse was longing for a home. In 1845 he wrote his daughter, who was now married and living in Porto Rico, in the West Indies, "I do long for the time, if it shall be permitted, to have you, with your husband and little Charles, around me; I feel my loneliness more and more keenly every day. Fame and money are, in themselves, a poor substitute for domestic happiness: as means to that end, I value them. Yesterday was the sad anniversary (the twentieth) of your dear mother's death, and I spent the most of it in thinking of her." Two years later he purchased two hundred acres on the Hudson River, near Poughkeepsie, calling it "Locust Grove," and built a handsome and spacious Italian villa for his residence. With the telegraph in his library, he could now converse with men in all parts of the world. Here he gathered his children and grandchildren around him. He was now fifty-six years old. Fame and money had come late in life. The next year he married Miss Sarah E. Griswold, the daughter of his cousin, a lady thirty years his junior. His life here was peaceful and happy, most of the day being spent in reading and writing. He was very fond of nature. One of his daughters writes: "He loved flowers. He would take one in his hand, and talk for hours about its beauty, its wonderful construction, and the wisdom and love of God in making so many varied forms of life and color to please our eyes. In his later years he became deeply interested in the microscope, and purchased one of great excellence and power. For whole hours, all the afternoon or evening, he would sit over it, examining flowers, or the animalcula in different fluids. Then he would gather his children about him, and give us a sort of _extempore_ lecture on the wonders of creation, invisible to the naked eye, but so clearly brought to view by the magnifying power of the microscope. "He was very fond of animals, cats and birds in particular. He tamed a little flying-squirrel, and it became so fond of him that it would sit on his shoulder while he was at his studies, and would eat out of his hand, and sleep in his pocket. To this little animal he became so much attached that we took it with us to Europe, where it came to an untimely end, in Paris, by running into an open fire."