Different, indeed, from the anticipations of either did the opening year prove. The season which had been the first of Mary's coöperation with Mr. Ware, was the last of his active service as a pastor. He had overtasked his energies, and that change was impending which affected the whole of their remaining work in life. On his return from Northampton, where he had been preaching, in the month of May, 1828, he was arrested at Ware by a violent fever, which was followed by extreme prostration, and confined him there several weeks. His wife was in Boston, and in a state of health that made travelling neither easy nor wholly safe. But she wrote so persuasively to the physician for leave to join her husband, that it could not be refused, and she was soon at his side. Under date of June 16th, she writes from Ware: "How grateful and happy I am, to be here! All the few feelings of doubt about the expediency of the jaunt, which others' fears forced upon my notice, have vanished, and my own strong convictions that it was best have become perfect certainty. With the unspeakable satisfaction of being with my husband, so unexpected to him, and scarcely hoped for by me, what can there be to dread which can be a balance for such blessings?" As soon as Mr. Ware was well enough, they went on to Worcester, where they remained six weeks. And there, on the 13th of July, Mrs. Ware's first child was born; a son, who lived but few years, yet long enough to leave a deep impression of beauty and promise. Toward the last of August, Mr. Ware set out alone on a horseback journey for his health, riding through New Hampshire and Vermont to Montreal and Quebec, and returning in October. During the first part of this interval, his wife and infant child were at lodgings in Newton, where her next letter is dated, referring in the opening to a poetical epistle which she had received from her husband. That epistle, as published at length in the Memoir of Mr. Ware,[3] many will remember; but its tenderness, and its allusions to their common experience at this period, will furnish an excuse, if we insert a part of it, as a preface to the letter which follows. "Dear Mary, 't is the fourteenth day Since I was parted from your side; And still upon my lengthening way In solitude I ride; But not a word has come to tell If those I left at home are well. "I am not of an anxious mind, Nor prone to cherish useless fear; Yet oft methinks the very wind Is whispering in my ear, That many an evil may take place Within a fortnight's narrow space. "But no,--a happier thought is mine; The absent, like the present scene, Is guided by a Friend Divine, Who bids us wait, serene, The issues of that gracious will, Which mingles good with every ill.