I don’t know what to say or how to write you, I am so uncertain of the scenes you may be passing through. In thought and spirit I am in the room with you every moment--that it is sad and _painful_, or sad and _desolate_ I know. I can _almost_ see, and _almost_ hear, and _almost_ know, how it all is--between us seems to be only the “veil so thin so strong,” there are moments when I think I can brush it away with my hand and look upon that dear treasured form and face, the earliest loved and latest mourned of all my life. Sometimes I am certain I hear the patient’s feeble moan, and at others above me the _clouds_ seem to divide, and, in the opening up among the blue and golden, that loved face, smiling and pleasant, looks calmly down upon me; then I think it is all past, and my poor father is at rest. Aye! more that he has learned the password to the Mystic Lodge of God and entered in: that the Providences and mysteries he has loved so much to contemplate are being made plain to him; that the inquiries of his intelligent soul are to be satisfied and that the God he has always worshiped he may now adore. And in spite of all the grief, the agony of parting, there is pleasure in these reflections, and consolation in the thought that while we may have one the less tie upon earth, we shall have one more treasure in Heaven. And yet again, when I look into my own heart, there is underlying the whole a little of the old-time hope--hope that he may yet be spared to us a little longer; that a few more months or years may be given us in which to prove the love and devotion of our hearts; that we may again listen to his wise counsels and kind admonitions, and hourly I pray Heaven that, if it be consistent with Divine arrangement, the cup may pass from him. But God’s will, not mine, be done. If my father still lives and realizes, will you tell him how much I love him and regret his sufferings, and how _much_ rather I would endure them myself if _he_ could be saved from them? With love and sympathy to all, I am, your affectionate sister CLARA