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Fenstanton Nr St Ives Hunts.
Oct. 8th / 68
My Very dear Friend
We leave this place for Bournemouth in a few weeks. This is the last note you will receive dated from it. I shall probably go to Stow Market, Suffolk, about the Middle of January, but I cannot help hoping that I may yet have a few lines from you during the month of December. God knows how much I need just now the sympathy of a beloved friend like you. The future never looked darker, nor the present more sad. All is very very hard to be up and doing—still achieving and pursuing—in my present circumstances! Yet it must be done.
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for alas! There are thousands of Aching hearts, like mine in this poor world, and broken as mine is. I trust I may still be enabled to soothe and console some of them. I forget if I ever told you, in my letters that my poor, dear brother had left five orphans. The eldest a sweet, loving accomplished, beautiful girl, just 19 years of age had a situation as governess in Germany. She was beginning to be useful to her widowed mother, whose dearest hope and consolation she was. It had been a hard struggle to part with this beloved child, but we all felt it was necessary. The dear girl suffered much at first, from the home sickness, peculiar to the Swiss, but she had got over it, and was beginning
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to feel quite happy, in her new circumstances. She was beloved by every body. I was so proud of her—for I had educated her, at least, given her the means to cultivate her talents. She loved me devotedly. A few weeks ago, she was attacked at Cologne by the Typhus fever, and she was cut off, be before any of her relatives had time to go to her. She died, far away from her Mother and her dearly loved Country! Oh, dear friend, you cannot imagine how deeply I feel this blow! But alas, yes you can! Oh I wish you had not. My beloved friend passed through the same very ordeals. She was the precious child, the one member of my family who thoroughly, and always understood me, and sympathized with me and God has taken her away!
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Oh, what a void I feel in my heart! Yes I must live and labor, and Struggle on. I dread beginning again. God Knows. My nerves have been so shaken that I almost daily suffer from neuralgia in the head. I trust I shall not become quite ill. Excuse the expressions of all these fears. It does one good to tell you all. Your example will keep me up. I shall not give way. You have suffered still more than I have. May God help us both. I know you will feel for me, and think of me sometimes. One of Mr. Coate's sons started about ten days ago for America. He is not very bright (between us) and his father thought going to America would make him more manly.
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His departure was decided on so suddenly. And just when I received the terrible news of the death of my precious niece, that I could not send you many little remembrances, which I was hoping to have ready for the first good opportunity. I had not finished your dear brother's wrapper, but I put in a pair of cuffs for him—(I shall send him the other things by & bye)—and one pair for you, dear friend. Also, for you, two very small drawings, little Swiss sketches. Perhaps you may find some corner, in your library to put them in. Until I send you two good, large sketches one of them, I am finishing for you, I also put in a picture book on cloth for little Annie.