University of Virginia Library

“After deliberating and advising with Mrs. Hyde,
who has been like the kindest of mothers to us,
we have come to a decision which only waits for
your approbation. The bakery is sold to Mr.
Werner, a German, who, when a stranger and quite
destitute, came to the Lovetts, as it seemed, accidentally.
Werner was honest and industrious; he
understood the business thoroughly, and introduced
some improvements. For the last two years he
has been a partner, and now he has bought out
Charles. His two sisters and their old parents
arrived a few weeks since, and a happier family
I never saw. How strange that such a train of

consequences should come from Werner just coming
in to breakfast with us one morning at Mr.
Lovett's. This is what Mrs. Hyde says we should
call providential. Our Father in heaven provides
the opportunity for doing good, and his faithful
children improve it. But to our own affairs: it is
not five years since Mr. Lovett went to Ohio, and
there are already four thousand inhabitants in the
village. The people, he says, are very anxious to
have the bakery going; the bakehouse is built on
the lot Mr. Lovett set off to Charles for his services
when he was apprentice to him. Our house
is nearly done, and large enough for us all. The
ladies in the village will have plenty of work for
the girls' millinery and dressmaking establishment,
and dear Jemmie will keep Charles's books, and
all of us will be in a way to earn an honourable
living; all but you, dear mother; the remainder of
your life must be rest. You shall be our queen-bee,
and we will be your workers. Mrs. Hyde wishes
you to consent to the wedding being here; she
says it will save time (as we must return here on
our way to Pittsburgh) and save the expense of
a journey to Massachusetts. Charles likes this
plan, and I want you to know our family before I
leave it. Mrs. Hyde says she will provide lodgings
for you all at a boarding-house near to us. Is
not this most kind? Oh, mother, you will like her so
much! She has such beautiful manners, not only
in the drawing-room and to ladies, but to all, down to
the man that sweeps off the flagging, and the poor
that beg at her door. She truly seems to see the
image of God in every human creature; it makes
people civil to speak to her; her manners inspire
them with self-respect. She never lowers herself,
but raises them. If some people looked as differently
as they act to those above and those below
them, they would sometimes appear like the “loathly
ladie” in the ballad.

“How very kind of you, dear mother, to offer fifty
dollars from your little pittance towards furnishing
our house; but, indeed, I have no occasion for it.
You remember my declining Mr. Hartell's gift at the
time of that horrid affair of Adéle's; you and I both
felt, and so did Charles, as if there was something
discouraging and degrading to servants in paying
their heart-service as well as their body-service.
But Mr. Hartell could not take this view of it, so
he gave Mr. Hyde one hundred dollars in trust
for me, to be paid on my coming of age or at my
marriage. I wonder he should have thought that
could take place before I was twenty-one; but I
believe he suspected, even then, that Charles and
I had thoughts of one another. Well, out of the
one hundred Mr. Hyde has made two, which, with
my savings, is quite enough to furnish our house
with comforts. Perhaps you will be surprised to
know that I have saved anything more than I have
sent to Jemmie. You first, dear mother, taught
me to be content with a little, and that the best
quality in dress is its adaptation to the wearer.
When I came to live with Mrs. Hyde, she gave
me an account-book, in which I set down every
penny I earned and spent. She purchases her
cotton and flannel at wholesale, and gives it to us
at the same price; and if she or the family make
us presents, it is not of their old clothes, which
would not be serviceable for us, but some good

article a little better than we should buy, a fur cape,
an umbrealla, or parasol. In all respects Mrs.
Hyde has been a mother to me. She has qualified
me to take charge of a family of my own, so
that, with the blessing of God, I hope to perform
my part well, and to contribute to Charles's prosperity
as well as his happiness. Oh, mother, what
a happy world this would be if there were plenty
such as you and Mrs. Hyde—if the rich and the
poor, in their respective stations, felt and acted
right. How foolish and wicked are those who try
to set one against the other; when, by being
friends, and acting in agreement, so much good
could be done, so much happiness gained. It
seems to me as if it were necessary there should
be rich and poor, to make all those seeds of virtue
which God has planted in our hearts spring up and
grow. If Mrs. Hyde was not rich, how could she
manifest such humility and self-denial, such wise
generosity and such wise economy? and, dear mother,
had you not been poor, very poor, could you
have given us an example of such gentleness, longsuffering,
patience, and self-reliance? Some think
the rich can only be generous in giving; what a
mistake! Mrs. Hyde does not give the half that
Mrs. Ardley does in presents or in charity, but she
gives her time, she imparts her knowledge, she
infuses her spirit, and oh! none but those who
live with her know how faithfully she tries to
lay the foundation of religion. To do all this,
she must, it is true, have other riches than the
poor riches of money. I have done; if I were to
write for ever, I could not tell what a blessing I esteem
it to serve in the humblest place in such a
family as this.

“Charles sends much love. Mother, are not
words very poor to express our strongest feelings?
I seem always to be struck dumb when my heart is
fullest, and now, when the time has come when I
may suitably tell you how dearly I love Charles,
how truly I have loved him ever since the cold
morning he left us the loaf of bread, it seems as if
the words I use every day, and in relation to other
persons, were not strong enough to express a feeling
so much stronger than any other.

“Don't read this to Jemmie—the love I feel for
him is not any less because I love Charles more
—but he might think it so. You won't think so,
mother, for every woman knows that there is one
love that masters all others—God has ordained it,
and how can we help it?

“Here is Charles looking over my shoulder, and
singing `Haste to the wedding.' Answer our request
by coming next Tuesday, dear mother, with
Jemmie and the girls, and believe me