18 September
"My dearest Lucy,
"Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very
suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had
both come to so love him that it really seems as though we
had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother,
so that the dear old man's death is a real blow to me. Jonathan
is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep
sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his
life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and
left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is
wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on
another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it
puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I
try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a
belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he
experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a
sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his, a nature which
enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise from clerk to
master in a few years, should be so injured that the very essence
of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my
troubles in the midst of your own happiness, but Lucy dear, I
must tell someone, for the strain of keeping up a brave and
cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here
that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must
do that day after tomorrow, for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will
that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there
are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner.
I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few
minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,
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