One large item in the sum of his regrets was his unexpectedly narrowed means. It would have required a generous amount of money to put The Wayside and its grounds into the delectable order at first contemplated, to bring them into any sort of English perfection, and my parents found that they could not afford it; and so all resulted in semi-comfort and rough appearances. This narrowing of means was caused not a little by the want of veracity of a person whom my father had trusted with entire affection and a very considerable loan, about which we none of us ever heard again. A crust becomes more than proverbially dry under these circumstances. My mother bore every reverse nobly. She writes, after her husband's death: "I have 'enjoyed life,' and 'its hard pinches' have not too deeply bitten into my heart. But this has been because I am not only hopeful and of indomitable credence by nature, but because this temperament, together with the silent ministry of pain, has helped me to the perfect, the unshadowed belief in the instant providence of God; in his eternal love, patience, sweetness; in his shining face, never averted. It is because I cannot be disappointed on account of this belief. To stand and wait after doing all that is legitimate is my instinct, my best wisdom, my inspiration; and I always hear the still, small voice at last. If man would not babble so much, we could much oftener hear God. The lesson of my life has been patience. It has only made me feel the more humble that God has been so beyond count benignant to me. I have been cushioned and pillowed with tender love from the cradle. Such a mother seldom falls to the lot of mortals. She was the angel of my life. Her looks and tones and her acts of high-bred womanhood were the light and music and model of my childhood. Then God joined my destiny with him who was to be all relations in one. Pain passed away when my husband came. Poverty was lighter than a thistle-down with such a power of felicity to uphold it. With 'lowering clouds' I have never been long darkened, because the sun above has been so penetrating that their tissue has directly become silvered and goldened. Our own closed eyelids are too often the only clouds between us and the ever-shining sun. I hold all as if it were not mine, but God's, and ready to resign it."