I meant to go to see your sister, but my head is still in such a weak state that though I go to walk nearly every day, I can not make calls.  It is five weeks since I went to church, for the same reason.  It is a part of God’s discipline with me to keep me shut up a good deal more than the old Adam in me fancies; but His way is absolutely perfect, and I hope I wouldn’t change it in any particular, if I could.  Have you Pusey’s tract, “Do all to the Lord Jesus”?  If not, I must send it to you.  It seems as if I had a lot of things I wanted to say, but after writing a little my hands and arms begin to tremble so that I can hardly write plainly.  You never saw such a lazy life as I lead now-a-days; I can’t do any thing.  I advise you to do what you have to do for Christ now; by the time you are as old as I am perhaps you will have the will and not the power.  Well, good-bye till next time.

The summer of this year was passed at Newburgh in company with the Misses Butler—­now Mrs. Kirkbride, of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Booth, of Liverpool—­and the families of Mr. William Allen Butler, Mr. B. F. Butler, and Mr. John P. Crosby, to all of whom Mrs. Prentiss was strongly attached.  The late Mr. Daniel Lord, the eminent lawyer, with a portion of his family, had also a cottage near by and was full of hospitable kindness.  In spite of the exacting hydropathic treatment, she found constant refreshment and delight in the society of so many dear friends.  “The only thing I have to complain of” she wrote, “is everybody being too good to me.  How different it is being among friends to being among strangers!”

In a letter to her husband, dated New York, Sept. 15, 1879, Mr. William Allen Butler gives the following reminiscence of an excursion to Paltz Point and an evening at Newburgh: 

From the date you, give in your note (to which I have just recurred) of our trip to Paltz Point, it seems that in writing you to-day I have unwittingly fallen on the anniversary of that pleasant excursion.  Without this reminder I could not have told the day or the year, but of the excursion itself I have always had a vivid and delightful recollection; and, if I am not mistaken, Mrs. Prentiss enjoyed it as fully as any one of the merry party.  It was only on that jaunt and in our summer home at Newburgh that I had the opportunity of knowing her readiness to enter into that kind of enjoyment, which depends upon the co-operation of every member of a circle for the entertainment of all.  The elements of our group were well commingled, and the bright things evoked by their contact and friction were neither few nor far between.  The game to which you allude of “Inspiration” or “Rhapsody” was a favorite.  The evening at Paltz Point called out some clever sallies, of which I have no record or special recollection; but I know that then, as always, Mrs. Prentiss seemed to have at her pencil’s point for instant use the wit and fancy so charmingly