“I have just come from a visit of eight days to Mount Vernon; your brother and sister are fairly well, although Laurence will never be of a robust constitution. But the little girl, I see, is not to be spared us long. She is now nearly three years old--older than any of Laurence’s other children have lived to be--but there is a blight upon this dear little innocent, and I doubt whether she will not be a flower in God’s garden by Christmas-time--greatly to her profit, but to the everlasting grief of her sorrowing parents.”