Another letter, and another, and perhaps another, and then my next letter will be dated on the blue, wide ocean, where I can have no answer—and then more than a long weary year must pass away before I can hear from you again. Yes, my beloved sister, I shall soon leave you, even as you come to me in your affectionate letters. The very name of Birmingham will no longer meet my eye, except when I unconsciously write it on some part of the ship that bears me over the beaming waters, or on some gloomy tree in the wilderness of Australia. I shall hear no more of Birmingham except from my own tongue, or from my weeping wife's, when we think of those dear friends who live there, and of those angel-infants of our own, who sleep there in their little graves. And when I do hear from you again, will it be of death? Alas! my forebodings are very painful. Still, I hope it will be far otherwise. I hope, though I hope with trembling, that I shall hear of your being happier, far happier, than when I leave you.
If we go alone (and they will not take my brother unless he can pay for his son's passage), the thought of you will be all we shall have to relieve us from our loneliness, and that thought
