Thus far we have seen the heroine of this life story tried and disciplined by toil and narrowed means; but the light of love has been about her and her faith and her buoyancy of spirit have not failed. How will it be if a great sorrow comes, one that bereaves her of one of her greatest treasures? It seems that while she had the children about her she felt that all losses were turned into blessings. In January, 1849, she writes to her friend Georgiana May to tell her that for six months after she came home from the water-cure she had had neuralgia in the eyes so that she could not have any daylight in the room, and that she had been so burdened and loaded with cares as to drain her dry of all capacity of thought, feeling or memory; yet, in spite of all that she cried out with the greatest buoyancy, “Well, Georgy, I am thirty-six years old! I am glad of it. I like to grow old and have six children and cares endless. I wish you could see me with my flock all around me. They sum up my cares, and were they gone I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? They are my work, over which I fear and tremble.” The words seemed almost like a premonition of what was to come to her in the desolate summer of 1849. A malignant epidemic of cholera broke out in the city and spread alarmingly. One hundred and twenty deaths occurred sometimes on one day. The Seminary was turned into a hospital for the care of the sick students. The gloom and sorrow of the time had to be borne by her alone, for Professor Stowe was himself at this time at Brattleboro on account of the failure of his own health. At last her own children were attacked and, after a period of acute suspense, little Samuel Charles succumbed to the disease. Broken-hearted over this crushing sorrow, Mrs. Stowe could yet give loving sympathy to those around her who were suffering as she. “I write as if there were no sorrow like my sorrow,” she said to her husband, “yet there has been in this city ... scarce a house without its dead. This heartbreak, this anguish, has been everywhere, and where it will end God only knows.” It was her only prayer to God that such anguish as hers might not be suffered in vain. She felt that she never could be consoled unless the crushing of her own heart might enable her to work out some great good to others. This deep prayer was to be fulfilled in a way of which she had not yet dreamed. CHAPTER XIV UNCONSCIOUS PREPARATION FOR A WORK