In a letter to Morse he says: "Which of my friends was it who lately observed to you that I had a picture mania? You made, I understand, a most excellent reply, 'You wished I would come to town, then, and bite a dozen.' Indeed, my very good sir, was it in my power to excite in them a just admiration of your talents, I would readily come to town and bite the whole community." And in another letter of April 10, 1819, Mr. Alston says: "Your portrait of my daughter was left in Georgetown [South Carolina], at the house of a friend; nearly all of the citizens have seen it, and I really think it will occasion you some applications.... Every one thought himself at liberty to make remarks. Some declared it to be a good likeness, while others insisted it was not so, and several who made such remarks, I _knew_ had _never_ seen my daughter. At last a rich Jew gentleman observed, 'it was the _richest_ piece of painting he had ever seen.' This being so much in character that I assure you, sir, I could contain myself no longer, which, spreading among the audience, occasioned not an unpleasant moment." Morse and his young wife returned to the North in the early summer of 1819, and spent the summer and fall with his parents in Charlestown. The young man occupied himself with the completion of the portraits which he had brought with him from the South, and his wife was busied with preparations for the event which is thus recorded in a letter of Dr. Morse's to his son Sidney Edwards at Andover: "Since I have been writing the above, Lucretia has presented us with a fine granddaughter and is doing well. The event has filled us with joy and gratitude." The child was christened Susan Walker Morse. In the mean time the distressing news had come from Charleston of the sudden death of Dr. Finley, to whose kindly affection and influence Morse owed much of the pleasure and success of his several visits to Charleston. Affairs had come to a crisis in the parish at Charlestown, and Dr. Morse decided to resign and planned to move to New Haven, Connecticut, with his family in the following spring. The necessity for pursuing his profession in the most profitable field compelled Morse to return to Charleston by way of Washington in November, and this time he had to go alone, much against his inclinations. He writes to his mother from New York on November 28, 1819: "I miss Lucretia and little Susan more than you can think, and I shall long to have us all together at New Haven in the spring."