"The day after he went, my Willie, who had been the very perfection of health and happiness all winter, began to droop, and, notwithstanding pretty efficient measures, in a few days became the subject of decided lung fever; not very sick, but requiring constant watching and careful attention. A week from the day he was taken, he had a severe spasmodic attack, from which we thought he would never revive; and when, after various measures, he began to breathe again, we sat for four hours expecting that every moment would be his last. It was a season of severe trial, not a little increased by his father's absence, and the impossibility of his reaching home until this sweet child must be for ever removed from his sight. Yet it was not for me to learn then, for the first time, that He who sends trial always gives strength to bear it. I knew it would be so, and in that faith I rested in peace and tranquillity. But this blow, too, was averted. After a long struggle he revived, and I realized, what I had never known before, that this second birth, as it were, of a child is a far more affecting cause for gratitude and joy than the first gift ever can be. It was a great experience in many ways. It helped me to understand the feeling of those who were witnesses of miracles more than any thing I ever met with. For all human means were at an end; nothing could be done but to pray that the Almighty Power, to whom all things were possible, might yet interpose to save. And the fact of having been carried through such a trial with entire submission and calmness,--what confidence does it not give in the all-sufficient power of that religion which can alone succor one in such an hour of need! The kindness, too, which such an occasion calls forth from those around us, is not the least of its blessings. It makes us view human kind more justly than we are sometimes inclined to do, and sinks for ever some of those petty and contemptuous feelings which will sometimes rise towards those with whom we have but little sympathy. "My husband returned after all this was over, quite sick; but he did return without the necessity of my going to him, and returned to be the better for being _at home_, gaining every moment after he entered his house. All this was during that bright, warm interval in April, when nature seemed buoyant with joy. We had just completed our summer arrangements, and altogether it seemed to me as if I had begun existence anew. Although somewhat exhausted by the struggle, I really am better than for months past. "Yours ever. "M. L. WARE." XI. LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE. (CONTINUED.)