which she had lifted her eyes when a schoolgirl, walking in the garden with her pastor; when a young bride leaving home; when a young mother with her babe in her arms; and when coming back from a visit to her own mother’s grave.
Yes, Sanbornton Bridge or Tilton were dear to her. Her native soil and natal horizons drew her as they must always draw all that is human in the hearts of the least and the greatest. Perhaps her compelling impulse in visiting Tilton was to see her brother George who had returned from Baltimore and now resided there with his wife and child. He had become blind. This great sorrow rested upon him heavily, indeed so heavily that he shortly yielded to an illness and died. But a few months before his death she made this visit home. How sensible she was of his sorrow and affliction she revealed in certain other verses in which she would have conveyed to her brother more than sympathy, the understanding of her own faith. But this conveyance of her faith was not possible; he could not accept it, though her stanzas with a depth of affection beg him to dispel the shadow and give back from his earnest eyes the image of the soul of Truth and Light.
On the occasion of this home-going Mary visited her brother and her sisters Abigail and Martha. With Abigail she had her last talk. She was not able to reconcile her to her views any more than she was able to inspire her brother with her faith. There was much of homely criticism to be endured and passed over, much of that sort of reminding of the
