P. A. 31st Dec. 1809.
My dear husband,
Your’s enclosing the needful, and what may, perchance, prove a pactolian source of the needful, arrived last mail. My heart and duty prompted me to reply to it by the same return mail, but alas! Who can say they will act as duty directs, even when inclination goes hand in hand with her? There is yet a Power to consult. Your letter found me, if not in bed positively, yet reclining under the influence of a most supreme tooth ache. I was incapable of writing or even of thinking collectively. I had taken cold in returning home. Nevertheless your kind attentions and solicitude to fulfill my minutest wish proved a healing balm to my heart, which acting by sympathy on my poor frame, produced the first sensations of ease I had known for 48 hours. That night I slept sweetly and ever since have been free from any thing