father's arms ere my own year of widowhood was over.

From that day, until the last of his dear and honored life, it was
my delight and consolation to remain with him as his comforter and
companion; and from those little notes which my mother hath made here
and there in the volume in which my father describes his adventures
in Europe, I can well understand the extreme devotion with which she
regarded him--a devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her,
I think, from loving any other person except with an inferior regard;
her whole thoughts being centred on this one object of affection and
worship. I know that, before her, my dear father did not show the love
which he had for his daughter; and in her last and most sacred moments,
this dear and tender parent owned to me her repentance that she had
not loved me enough: her jealousy even that my father should give his
affection to any but herself: and in the most fond and beautiful words
of affection and admonition, she bade me never to leave him, and to
supply the place which she was quitting. With a clear conscience, and a
heart inexpressibly thankful, I think I can say that I fulfilled those
dying commands, and that until his last hour my dearest father never had
to complain that his daughter's love and fidelity failed him.

And it is since I knew him entirely--for during my mother's life he
never quite opened himself to me--since I knew the value and splendor of
that affection which he bestowed upon me, that I have come to understand
and pardon what, I own, used to anger me in my mother's lifetime, her
jealousy respecting her husband's love. 'Twas a gift so precious, that
no wonder she who had it was for keeping it all, and could part with
none of it, even to her daughter.

Though I never heard my father use a rough word, 'twas extraordinary