In spite of her blithe resistance, Mrs. Stowe’s health for a time gave way entirely, and she was obliged to go to a water-cure in Vermont. Her sister Catherine was there at the same time and for much the same reason; so the two sisters had many hours of communion, and, no doubt, some fun. While she was there Harriet’s husband, who was rather inclined to look on the dark side, wrote her a most melancholy letter. She answered that she wished he could be with her at Brattleboro to coast down hill on a sled, or go sliding and snowballing by moonlight. “I would snowball every bit of the hypo out of you,” she said. Then to amuse him she copied a poem that Kate had just been writing on the cheerful subject of tombstones. It was accompanied by two pictures of tombstones they had drawn. On one was inscribed “_Eheu me miserum = Hic jacket_,” and over the stone on the branch of a tree was hung--a jacket! The poem, in two cantos, was written, she said, for the edification of certain dolorous individuals in the Semi-colon. CANTO I In the Kingdom of Mortin I had the good fortin To find these verses On tombs and on hearses, Which I, being jinglish, Have done into English. CANTO II The man that’s so colickish When his friends are all frolickish As to turn up their noses And to turn on their toeses Shall have only verses On tombstones and hearses. The letter closes with an exhortation to him to be patient and bear trouble as if it were the toothache or a driving rain or anything else that one cannot escape--which is good sound advice. Her own power to put this advice into practice and to control her moods of depression is shown in a letter she once wrote to him when he was away in search of health.