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Never had I seen his face more radiant with joy, than when he looked up to me, as I stood before the open window of the reception room and threw me his kisses from the ends of his fingers, and bowed to me his happy adieu.

Yes, happy that his conspiracy against my personal liberty had so completely triumphed over all opposition.

Having secured the entombment of the mother, he had now naught to do but to teach her children to despise their mother and treat her name and memory with contempt and derision.

CHAPTER VIII.
Disappointed Hopes.

Mr. Packard has gone! My last hope of deliverance through him, has now sunk into a rayless night of despair. Yes, utter despair of ever being liberated and reinstated in my family again. He has not so much as even uttered one syllable on which I could build such a hope. I never have heard him even say, he hoped I should ever get better, so as to be with him once more. What can this mean? Has he buried me for life?

Yes, so his conduct speaks, and no word or act contradicts it. Hopeless imprisonment! Oh, may my reader never know what these terms signify. I know what it is to endure endless torment, and hopeless bondage! And it is a terrible doom.

I did try to build a faint hope upon the fact that he had brought only a small satchel of things with me, and these could not last me long; but before he left, he dashed this hope to the ground by telling me he should send me my trunk, after he got home. In about three weeks, there did arrive a monstrous sized trunk directed to Mrs. Packard, which led the patients to exclaim:

"Is Mr. Packard going to keep his wife here for life?"

And how did my sad heart echo this fearful question.

But even amid this gloom, one ray of comfort gleamed forth at the thought, now I shall hear from my dear children. They surely will send some token of love and affection to their imprisoned mother. And to enjoy this comfort to its fullest extent, I asked the Doctor to allow me to unpack it in my own room, with the door locked. He kindly locked me in himself, seemingly rejoicing in my anticipated joy.

My first surprise on opening it, was to see so few articles of clothing, and these of the very poorest kind, and in a state of the most tangled confusion, with rotten lemons and cans of fruit scattered amongst them to their detriment, poor as they were. The whole contents would not fill one-third of the trunk, and this caused the confusion. And why he should send so large a trunk to carry so few articles, has always been an unsolved mystery to me.

But this feeling was soon lost in the bright thought of soon finding my children's love tokens. Each and every article was most carefully searched, to find what would be next to finding my child, for his own fingers must have held it and kissed it for his mother.

But ah! must I utter the sad truth, that no token, no letter could be found, on which my fond heart could rest its loving impulses? Yes, so it was; and being alone, I wept in deepest anguish at this disappointed hope.

My sons afterwards told me that they all expressed a wish to send me a letter and many tokens, but their father had refused to let them do so unless he should dictate the letters. Isaac said he knew that to get such a letter as his father would dictate, would pain me more than it would to get none at all.

And so it would have been, for on a narrow strip of paper, four inches long and two wide, I found penciled:

"We are glad to hear you are getting better; hope you will soon get well. Your daughter Elizabeth."

This her father made her write to make me feel that she believed me insane; and he knew nothing would torment me so much as this thought from her. Indeed, I found that what Isaac had said was too true. I was more pained to get this line from my daughter than I would have been to get none at all; for not knowing the truth, I did fear she was coming under the influence of this delusion.

I think the Doctor pitied me under this trial, for the next day, when, in reply to his questions, I told him I found no letters, or love tokens, or messages from my children, be seemed astonished, and said:

"I thought you would find many letters. I wonder they did not write to their mother."

Another disappointment. I had especially requested Mr. Packard that my nice black silk dress and white crape shawl be sent, so that I could go to church decently dressed. But not only these, but all my other good articles of clothing were kept from me, not only while I was in the asylum, but long after I was liberated; and then he was forced to give them up upon my father's authority. Now my only hope of deliverance lay in the Mantenoites fulfilling their promise to get me out in a few days. Every carriage and man was watched, hoping to find in him my deliverer. But none came, until several weeks, when I was called from Mrs. McFarland's parlor into the reception-room, to see Mr. and Mrs. Blessing, from Manteno, and a stranger, to whom they introduced me as Dr. Shirley, of Jacksonville.