Aug. 21st—­As we have only had sixteen in our family of late, I have not had much to do.  Yesterday we made up a party to the quarry and had just got seated, twenty-nine in all, to eat a very nice dinner, when it began to rain in floods.  Each grabbed his plate, if he could, and rushed to a blacksmith’s shop not far off; twenty or thirty workmen rushed there too, and there we were, cooped up in the dirt, to finish our meal as we best could.  It soon stopped pouring and we had a delightful drive home.  Mr. B. F. B., with two of his boys, was with us.  He is charmed with our house and its views.  Katy has made her last appearance in the Advance, but I keep getting letters about her from all quarters, and the editors say they have had hundreds. [4] H. has caught up with Hal and they are exactly of a height, and I feel as if I had a dear little pair of twins.  Last Sunday evening the three boys laid their heads in my lap together, all alike content.

* * * * *

IV.

Return to Town.  Domestic Changes.  Letters.  “My Heart sides with God in everything.”  Visiting among the Poor.  “Conflict isn’t Sin.”  Publication of Stepping Heavenward.  Her Misgivings about it.  How it was received.  Reminiscences by Miss Eliza A. Warner.  Letters.  The Rev. Wheelock Craig.

Early in October she returned to town and began to make ready for the departure of her eldest daughter to Europe, where she was to pass the next year with the family of Prof.  Smith.  The younger children had thus far been taught by their sister, and her leaving home was fraught with no little trial both to them and to the mother.

To Mrs. Smith, New York, October 12.

I can fully sympathise with the sad toss you are in about staying abroad another year, but we feel that there is no doubt you have decided wisely and well.  But the bare mention of your settling down at Vevay has driven us all wild.  What hallucination could you have been laboring under?  Why, your husband would go off the handle in a week!  To be sure it is beautiful for situation as Mount Zion itself, but one can’t live on beauty; one must have life and action, and stimulus; in other words, human beings.  They’re all horrid (except you), but we can’t do without ’em.  What I went through at lonely Genevrier!

  “Oh Solitude, where are the charms
  That sages have seen in thy face!”

We took it for granted that you would settle in some German city, near old friends; it is true, they mayn’t be all you want, but anything is better than nothing, and you would stagnate and moulder all away at Vevay.  What is there there?  Why, a lake and some mountains, and you can’t spend a year staring at them.  Well, I dare say light will be let in upon you.  I hope A. will behave herself; you must rule it over her with a rod of iron (as if you could!), and make