Mrs. Hunt did as I requested her, and the first time I paid her a
visit, at her new residence, at Marlborough, which was about a month
afterwards, I found that she had not only got furniture enough to
furnish a comfortable house, but that she had a room-full over what was
necessary. Some of my readers will stare to hear me talk of visiting
my wife, under such circumstances, and after such a formal separation.
But so it was; and I can say further, though we have had the misfortune
to be divided, I do not believe that any human being ever heard either
of us cast any reflection, or throw out any the slightest imputation
against the other. I have always treated her and spoken of her as the
amiable mother of my children, and she, I believe, has spoken of me at
all times as the affectionate, though in this respect the unfortunate
father, of her children.

Thus have I, without the slightest disguise, given a faithful and
unvarnished detail of this melancholy and distressing event. This has
been the only drawback, the only thing that my enemies could ever bring
fairly against me, that I was separated from my wife--an assertion which
was too true to admit of dispute; but all the other calumnies against
one are as false and as groundless, as that _of having turned my wife
out of doors to starve_. Having said thus much, I am sure that the
reader will not expect that I shall be constantly wounding the feelings
of an amiable and extensive family, by dwelling upon and publishing
every little anecdote of my private domes tic concerns. It is enough
to say here, that it is now nearly nineteen years since this event
occurred, and I will briefly add, that, placing this unfortunate family
affliction out of the question, no man living ever enjoyed nineteen
years of such uninterrupted domestic felicity with less alloy than I
have done. No man's home was ever more agreeable than mine was at all