August 1st.—­You have indeed had a “rich experience.” [11] We all read your letter with the deepest interest and feel that it would have been good to be there.  Your account of Caro shows what force of character she possessed, as well as what God’s grace can do and do quickly.  This is not the first time He has ripened a soul into full Christian maturity with almost miraculous rapidity.  A veteran saint could not have laid down his armor and adjusted himself to meet death with more calmness than did this young disciple.  I do not wonder her family were borne, for the time, above their sorrow, but alas! their bitter pangs of anguish are yet to meet them.  Her poor mother!  How much she has suffered and has yet to suffer! all the more because she bears it so heroically.

To Miss Emily S. Gilman, Hunter, Aug 1, 1864.

You must have wondered why I did not answer your letter and your book, for both of which I thank you.  Well, it has been such dry, warm weather, that I have not felt like writing; besides, for nurse I have only a little German girl fourteen years old, who never was out of New York before, and whom I have been so determined on spoiling that I couldn’t bear to take her off from her play to mend, patch, darn, wash faces, necks, feet, etc., and unconsciously did every thing there was to do for the children and a little more besides.  I like the little book very much.  You have the greatest knack, you girls, of lighting on nice books and nice hymns.  We are right in the midst of most charming walks.  Here is a grove and there is a brook; here is a creek, almost a river (big enough at any rate to get on to the map) and there a mountain.  As to ferns and mosses for your poetical side, and as for raspberries and blackberries for your t’other side, time would fail me if I should begin to speak of them.  I think a great deal of you and your sisters when off on foraging expeditions, and wish you were here notwithstanding you are mossy and ferny there.  We have as yet made only one excursion.  That was delightful and gave us our first true idea of the Catskills.  Before Mr. P. came I usually went off on my forenoon walk alone, unless the children trooped after, and came home a miniature Birnam wood, with all sorts of things except creeping things and flying fowl.

I have just finished reading to M. and a little girl near her age, a little French book you would like, called “Augustin.”  I never met with a sweeter picture of a loving child anywhere.  Well, I may as well stop writing.  Remember me lovingly to all your dear household.

To Mrs. Stearns she writes, Sept. 16: