1880 August 23, Montrose, to My dearest husband

              Montrose 8.23.80

My dearest husband,
Thy nice long satisfactory letter written on Fourth-day reached me this evening & I felt as if I must set right down & answer it. It is such a comfort, dear, to heave thee speak freely to me, & I do most fully sympathize with thee in all thy strivings after something better. Ever since our marriage I have felt, that my sin in entering into our engagement under the feeling that I did not love thee as I should & that God in consequence did not give me his peace in it, had been as it were a wall of separation between me & that better life which I believe I once know something of; and although it has pleased our Heavenly Father to strengthen my love for thee very greatly, I still feel that I have not been restored to His favor, but have rather drifted further and further from Him. Yet I often have