what pain) I am now telling you. I never cease to beseech Him that He may preserve us, not from poverty (for what is poverty?), but from the terrible juncture which would arise should the interests of the children, which I am called upon to protect, ever come into collision with our own. Hitherto God has listened to my prayers. You have never yet overstepped the limit beyond which we should be obliged either to sacrifice property which would no longer belong to us, but to the children, or — It is terrible to think of, but the dreadful misfortune at which I hint is forever hanging over our heads.

Yes, it is the heavy cross which God has given us both to carry.

“Also, you write about the children, and come back to our old point of difference by asking my consent to