Mary Pickard returned from England in the summer of 1826, and was warmly welcomed by her many friends in Boston. Her last home before going abroad had been at Miss Bent's in Washington Street, where she now went, and stayed through the fall and winter with the exception of short visits to friends in the vicinity. Thronged with visitors, and occupied with business of her own which she never left to others if she could do it herself, she had no time for large correspondence, and we find few letters for some months. But there are brief notes which show the fulness of her enjoyment and gratitude, enhanced by the recollection of the trying scenes through which she had passed, but which she rarely named and never magnified, as we are assured by some who were constantly with her. The mercies of the past, more than the trials, filled her thoughts. "My whole absence has been but a succession of mercies, for which I could not in a long life show the gratitude I feel; and this the greatest of all, the safe restoration to my beloved home and blessed friends,--it is indeed overwhelming. I have been borne through afflictive trials by that Power which alone can enable us to bear them; may I also find the same strength sufficient to keep me firm and uninjured, amid the greater trial of prosperity and joy." This was said to one of her former instructors in Hingham, with whom she spent a week in November, reviving the memory of the "first awaking of the mind to high and holy thoughts and resolves."
To the trial of prosperity of which she speaks, she may have been exposed at this time, if at any. She had returned after a long absence, in which she had accomplished all that she proposed, and more than to most minds would have seemed possible. She was again in the midst of endeared and delighted friends, more free from care and solicitude for others than she had ever been before; her society sought by a larger circle of devoted and admiring acquaintance, paying her marked attention. There was every thing to gratify, and much to flatter. And she was happy, very happy,--"more lively and joyous, I think, than at any time of her life," writes an intimate friend. But she did not remain long unemployed, or live for herself. She sought other objects of interest, places and ways of laboring for those in need. She took classes of poor children in more than one Sunday school, and visited the houses of the poor during the week; of several families in Sea Street she is said to have taken particular care through that first season, though a season crowded with engagements of friendship and society, and occupied before its close with an unexpected and absorbing interest.
