Your arrangements at Heidelberg seem to me to be as delightful as anything can be in a world where nothing is ideal.  Be sure to let A. bear her full share of the expense, and be a mother to her if you can.  The gayest outside life has an undertone of sadness, and I do not doubt she will have hours of unrest which she will hardly know how to account for.  I am afraid Heidelberg will be rather narrow bounds for your husband, and hope he may decide to go to Egypt in case his ear gets quite well.  How fortunate that he is near a really good aurist.  I am always nervous about ear-troubles.  Fancy your having to shout your love to him!  In a letter written about two weeks ago, Miss Lyman says, “How am I?  Longing for a corner in which to stop trying to live, and lie down and die,” and adds that she is now too feeble to travel.  I suppose she is liable to break down at any moment, but I do hope she won’t be left to go abroad.  I judge from what you say of Mr. H. that he is slipping off.  I always look at people who are going to heaven with a sort of curiosity and envy; it is next best to seeing one who has just come thence.  Get all the good out of him you can; there is none too much saintliness on earth.  I wonder how you spend your time?  Do, some time, write the history of one day; what you said to that funny cook, and what she said to you; what you thought and what you did; and what you didn’t think and didn’t did.

Friday, 19th.—­Thanksgiving has come and gone beautifully.  It was a perfect day as to weather.  Our congregation joined Dr. Murray’s, and he gave us an excellent sermon.  The four Stearnses came in to dinner and seemed to enjoy it.  I suppose you all celebrated the day in Yankee fashion and got up those abominations—­mince pies.  When I told L. about ——­’s fourth marriage, he said it reminded him of a place he had seen, where a man lay buried in the midst of a lot of women, the sole inscription on his gravestone being “Our Husband.”  Mrs. ——­ says the tiffs between my Katy and her husband are exactly like those she had with hers, and Mrs. ——­ said very much the same thing—­after hearing which, I gave up.

Tell A. I had a call yesterday from Mrs. S——­, who came to town to spend Thanksgiving at her father’s, and fell upon my neck and ate me up three several times.  I tell you what it is, it’s nice to have people love you, whether you deserve it or not, and this warm-hearted, enthusiastic creature really did me good.  Dr. Skinner sent us an extraordinary book to read called “God’s Furnace.”  There is a good deal of egotism in it and self-consciousness, and a good deal of genuine Christian experience.  I read it through four times, and, when I carried it back and was discussing it with him, he said he had too.  It seems almost incredible that a wholly sanctified character could publish such a book, made up as it is of the author’s own letters and journal and most sacred joys and sorrows; but perhaps when I get sanctified I shall go to printing mine—­it really seems to be a way they have.  The Hitchcocks sailed yesterday, and it must have cheered them to set forth on so very fine a day.  Give my love to everybody straight through from Hal up to your husband and Mr. H.