I wish we had you, my dear mother, here among these mountains, for the cool, bracing air would help to build you up.  Both Mr. Stearns and George have come back from Germany looking better than when they started on their trip two weeks ago.  It has been very cold; the thermometer some mornings at eight o’clock standing at 46, and the mountains being all covered with snow.  We slept with a couple of bottles of hot water at our feet, and two blankets and a comforter of eiderdown over us, after going to bed early to get warm.  My sewing-machine is a great comfort, and the peasants enjoy coming down from the mountains to see it.  Besides, I find something to do on it every day.

I often wish I could set you down in the midst of the church to which we go every Sunday, if only to show you how the people dress.  A bonnet is hardly seen there; everybody wearing a black silk cap or a bloomer. I wear a bloomer; a brown one trimmed with brown ribbon.  An old lady sits in front of me who wears a white cap much after the fashion of yours, and on top of that is perked a monstrous bloomer trimmed with black gauze ribbon.  Her dress is linsey-woolsey, and for outside garment she wears a black silk half-handkerchief, as do all the rest.  No light dress or ribbon is seen.  I must tell you now something that amused A. and me very much yesterday at dinner.  A French gentleman, who married a Spanish lady four years ago, sits opposite us at the table, and he and his wife are quite fascinated with M., watch all her motions, and whisper together about all she does.  Yesterday they got to telling us that the lady had been married when only twelve years old to a gentleman of thirty-two, had two children, and was a grandmother, though not yet thirty-six years old.  She said she carried her doll with her to her husband’s house, and he made her learn a geography lesson every day till she was fourteen, when she had a baby of her own.  I asked her if she loved her husband, and she said “Oh, yes,” only he was very grave and scolded her and shut her up when she wouldn’t learn her lessons.  She said that her own mother when thirty-six years old had fourteen children, all of whom are now living, twelve of them boys, and that the laws of Spain allow the father of six sons to ask a favor for them of the King, but the father of twelve may ask a favor for each one; so every one of her brothers had an office under the Government or was an officer in the army.  I don’t know when I have been more amused, for she, like all foreigners, was full of life and gesture, and showed us how she tore her hair and threw down her books when angry with her husband.