And how often does this habit lead to falsehood, and all manner of injustice!... But enough. Perhaps I am too much of a recluse to judge justly of the temptations of city life, and am committing the very sin which I am condemning. Suffice it to say, that thus was my whole comfort in town destroyed, and I came home feeling that, so far as regarded our knowledge of each other's inner woman, we might as well not have met." With all the variety of the Cambridge life, there was necessarily a sameness which makes it needless to mark every year, or follow exactly the order of events. The chief "events" of these twelve years were the death of one child, the birth of four, and the variations of health and sickness to both parents. In the experience of sickness, the year 1836 brought one of the sorest visitations. We subjoin Mrs. Ware's account of it soon after its occurrence, and her review of the year at its close. "_Cambridge, May 29, 1836._ "MY DEAR N----: "... You have heard, no doubt, enough of the outline of our story to have traced us in all our outward movements. But you cannot know what rich experience the last four months have brought to us, and the compass of a letter can tell you little. The first stroke was a heavy one. Henry had been very well all winter, and had gained a degree of strength and ability to labor unharmed, which, in our most sanguine moments, we never even hoped for, so that the disappointment was even greater than when he was taken ill at Ware, as the height from which he fell was greater. He was attacked, for the first time since that, upon the lungs; and when, for the first few days, it seemed quite reasonable to expect that the consequences, if not even more alarming, would be at least as lasting as those which followed the former attack, the prospect was heart-sickening. It required the industrious use of all the few moments of thought I could borrow from my occupations, to gather strength enough to nerve me for the calm contemplation of the picture.