“Dec. 5, 1854.  The love of one’s own sex is precious, for it is neither provoked by vanity nor retained by flattery; it is genuine and sincere.  I am grateful that I have had much of this in my life.

“The comet looked in upon us on the 29th.  It made a twilight call, looking sunny and bright, as if it had just warmed itself in the equinoctial rays.  A boy on the street called my attention to it, but I found on hurrying home that father had already seen it, and had ranged it behind buildings so as to get a rough position.

“It was piping cold, but we went to work in good earnest that night, and the next night on which we could see it, which was not until April.

“I was dreadfully busy, and a host of little annoyances crowded upon me.  I had a good star near it in the field of my comet-seeker, but what star?

“On that rested everything, and I could not be sure even from the catalogue, for the comet and the star were so much in the twilight that I could get no good neighboring stars.  We called it Arietes, or 707.

“Then came a waxing moon, and we waxed weary in trying to trace the fainter and fainter comet in the mists of twilight and the glare of moonlight.

“Next I broke a screw of my instrument, and found that no screw of that description could be bought in the town.

“I started off to find a man who could make one, and engaged him to do so the next day.  The next day was Fast Day; all the world fasted, at least from labor.

“However, the screw was made, and it fitted nicely.  The clouds cleared, and we were likely to have a good night.  I put up my instrument, but scarcely had the screw-driver touched the new screw than out it flew from its socket, rolled along the floor of the ‘walk,’ dropped quietly through a crack into the gutter of the house-roof.  I heard it click, and felt very much like using language unbecoming to a woman’s mouth.

“I put my eye down to the crack, but could not see it.  There was but one thing to be done,—­the floor-boards must come up.  I got a hatchet, but could do nothing.  I called father; he brought a crowbar and pried up the board, then crawled under it and found the screw.  I took good care not to lose it a second time.

“The instrument was fairly mounted when the clouds mounted to keep it company, and the comet and I again parted.

“In all observations, the blowing out of a light by a gust of wind is a very common and very annoying accident; but I once met with a much worse one, for I dropped a chronometer, and it rolled out of its box on to the ground.  We picked it up in a great panic, but it had not even altered its rate, as we found by later observations.

“The glaring eyes of the cat, who nightly visited me, were at one time very annoying, and a man who climbed up a fence and spoke to me, in the stillness of the small hours, fairly shook not only my equanimity, but the pencil which I held in my hand.  He was quite innocent of any intention to do me harm, but he gave me a great fright.