Life of Count Rumford. 371 



quence of the disappointment in not seeing you this year, I still 

 anticipate with pleasure the next period which you have fixed 

 upon to make us the visit, the postponement will seem some- 

 thing like Jacob's second service for Rachel. I recollect with 

 the purity of youthful fondness the many pleasant hours spent 

 when you were here, and seem ready rashly to decide on the 

 visit which you have with so much affection and friendship 

 invited me to make. But when I consider the many important 

 engagements I have on hand, it would certainly be considered 

 the height of imprudence in me at this time to break off and 

 abandon them all. But, however, I can accept your own 

 proposition to postpone and not give over the design. For 

 though I may have passed the meridian of life, I am at present, 

 thank God, in perfect health, and in the enjoyment of a good 

 constitution, which, I trust, has never been impaired by ex- 

 cesses. 



" However, I have been recently admonished not to place too 

 much dependence on this. In the instance of Mrs. Baldwin, 

 who (the very evening that she was seized with that distressing, 

 deadly sickness which chained her down to misery for near 

 eight months, and then ended in death), of her own accord, in 

 the most agreeable manner, with seeming caution and modesty, 

 observed to me while alone with her at supper, being Sunday 

 evening, how perfectly she enjoyed her health, her first friend, 

 the family, and life in general, not three hours passed thereafter 

 before she was arrested, and Death seemed to lay his cold hand 

 and summoned her hence. Her physician pretty soon gave her 

 over and resigned her to that king of terrors. Not so her hus- 

 band, more reluctant still. He supported a ray of hope, that 

 with all that source of youthful strength and vigor which she 

 had before in so high a degree possessed, she might possibly 

 outlive her disorders, and have perhaps just life enough to build 

 a recovery upon ; and every means in my power was used to 

 that end. Sometimes I was flattered, at other times discouraged, 

 and thus was agitated until the 8th day of August, when her 

 dissolution happened, and put an end to ajl exertions and all 

 hope. 



