The domestic life of Sumner's friends underwent changes. Cleveland and Felton were now both married. The former was living at ‘Pine Bank,’ near Jamaica Pond, and the latter in a new house he had built at Cambridge. Captain R. B. Forbes was embarking for China to make another fortune. Hillard met with one of the saddest of bereavements,—the loss of an only child. Young William Story had passed from College to Law School, and was making his first essays in sculpture,—the busts of his father and a classmate. The ‘Five of Clubs,’ now four only,—Felton, Cleveland, Hillard, Longfellow,—kept up their reunions, always commemorating at firesides and in feasts the loved member whose seat was vacant; and there were many callers at ‘Number Four’ Court Street, who inquired eagerly for his health, progress, and the time of his return.
One or another of Sumner's correspondents wrote to him of these public or private affairs, and never did a young man enjoy tidings from home more than he. He was interested in all that concerned his friends. The events of their marriage and the birth of their children drew from him cordial and delicate congratulation, and he was quick to send his sympathy in bereavement. The families of his friends reciprocated this unfailing interest, and kept him in faithful remembrance. Mrs. Story and Mrs. Greenleaf regarded him like an absent son; and the wives of others, whose age was near his own, felt for him a sisterly affection.
His most constant correspondent was Hillard, who, in frequent and well-filled letters, kept him informed of all that was passing among friends, in courts, at ‘Number Four,’ in book-making, in society, and at Cambridge. Greenleaf wrote of the Law School and of politics. Story wrote of cases heard or decided by the Supreme Court, and of his labors as professor and author. Cleveland and Felton remembered him with many letters, full of affection, each detailing his studies, and the latter reporting also the incidents of college life. Lieber invoked his good offices with publishers and critics. Among correspondents who wrote with less frequency were Longfellow, Mr. Daveis, Luther S. Cushing (who wrote concerning ‘The Jurist’), Mr.Lawrence and Mrs. Samuel Lawrence, Richard Fletcher, Willard Phillips, and Benjamin Rand; and, after their return from Europe, Mr. Ticknor and Dr. Shattuck.