lying-in wore off, she appeared also to have recovered her general good
health, and her usual cheerfulness. She was always benignant, kind, and
affectionate, but the effects of an incessant nervous headache had
produced a sombre sadness, which threw a gloom around, and affected the
whole family, and prevented that sort of hilarity and cheerfulness, which
was the usual companion of our abode. My father was of a generous,
hospitable, sociable disposition, and was never so happy and blessed as
when he had his friends surrounding him, and partaking of those comforts
which he had acquired by his industry, skill, and persevering attention to
his business; but even these sociable enjoyments with his friends had been
very much curtailed, by my dear mother's melancholy indisposition.

The restoration of her health was hailed by my father as the greatest
blessing that Divine Providence could have bestowed upon him and his
family; and we were all made to join him in audibly offering up our
nightly prayers and grateful acknowledgments to the allwise and beneficent
Creator, for this to us the greatest of earthly blessings. My father was
enraptured, and a hundred times a day, while he burst forth into sincere
and extatic praise and adoration of the goodness of the Divine Being, he
would enjoin us, his children, never to forget his mercy and loving
kindness, in restoring his dear Elizabeth to health. He also called in his
friends again, to partake of his hospitable and festive board. In fact, he
would sometimes exclaim, to my mother, that he was almost too happy for a
mortal, in this vale of misery and probation. My amiable mother used
gently to chide him, and to tell him that the best way to manifest their
gratitude to Divine Providence, for the happiness which it bestowed, was
never to let a day pass over their heads without doing some good act to
prove their willingness to deserve it. She would add, with her eye beaming
a heavenly smile, "as our blessed Saviour has bestowed every earthly
comfort upon us, let it be part of our duty and our pleasure to dispense