Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878., page 109 by Various Authors
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r and would talk to her--not giving her frivolous answer for frivolous question, but saying to her what I had to say as earnestly as though I had been moved by Spirit in meeting to give the assurances of my own heart. It is a wonder to me at this day how calm she often became under my mode of speech. She fell into the way of looking for me and expecting me, and often when I saw her, far in the night, at her window holding out her very thin hands in supplication, I would softly raise my own window and say kindly, "Don't thee think thee could sleep if thee tried, friend Jordan?"--"I will try, Quaker," she would say, and go in and close the window, and remain quiet for the rest of the night. It was a sad contrast, I am sure--she wild and uncontrollable from self-government, and I held in and still by discipline of many ancestors. And then when she found that her cavilling against the Lord and His mighty works was the opposite of pleasant to me, and made me sad of visage, she after a while would content herself to say, "I used to say" so and so, as the case might be, "but now I doubt myself;" which was more comforting.
But there came a letter from friend Hicks; and after much talk concerning a certain lot of lumber and other matters of business, he said, "My daughter is not looking healthful, and is not so well as could be desired." I do not know what made me forget all the rest of his letter but that one line. It seemed to me that I was stricken with pain with that thin black miracle--pen-and-ink words. I wrote a letter to him instantly; I put aside all modesty of demeanor and spoke only of Barbara, of my desire to have her well and cheerful; I never once in all my lines mentioned business. Friend Hicks must have been sensibly astonished. That night when I went home friend Jordan for the first time grated upon me, and I would fain have gone into my room and closed the door and thought long and painfully. In my flighty mind I saw Barbara pining, and for me! Never before had I thought she cared so well for me a