Tuesday.—­On Sunday papa preached a sermon in behalf of the Mission, asking for $35,000 to build a chapel, for which Mr. Cady had made a plan.  I got greatly stirred up, as I hope everybody did.  Mr. Dodge will give one-quarter of the sum needed.  It is Washington’s birthday, and the children are all at home from school, and are at the dining-room table drawing maps.  Mr. and Mrs. G. called, but I was out seeing a poor woman, whose romance of love and sorrow I should like to tell you about if it would not fill a book.  She says Bishop S. has supported her and her three children for seven months out of his own pocket.

Saturday, Feb. 26th.—­Your two last letters, together with Mrs. Smith’s, were all in the box as I was starting with M. for her music.  My children pulled in opposite directions, but I pushed on, and papa saved the letters to read to me when I got back.  He reads them awfully, and will puzzle over a word long enough for me to have leisure to go crazy and recover my sanity.  However, nobody shall make fun of him save myself; so look out.  The boys have gone skating to-day for the third time this winter, there has been so little cold weather.

Sunday Evening.—­I did not mean to plague you with Stepping Heavenward any more, but we have had a scene to-day which will amuse you and Mrs. Smith.  Just before service began, an aristocratic-looking lady seated in front of Mrs. B. began to talk to her, whereupon Mrs. B. turned round and announced to the congregation that I was the subject of it by pointing me out, and then getting up and bringing her to our pew.  Once there, she seized me by the hand and said, “I am Mrs. ——.  I have just read your book and been carried away with it.  I knew your husband thirty-three years ago, and have come here to see you both,” etc., etc.  Finding she could get nothing out of me, she fell upon M., and asked her if I was her sister, which M. declared I was not.  After church I invited her to step into the parsonage, and she stepped in for an hour and told this story:  She had had the book lent her, and yesterday, lunching at Mrs. A.’s, asked her if she had read it, and finding she had not, made her promise to get it.  She then asked who this E. Prentiss was, and a lady present enlightened her.  “What! my sister’s beloved Miss Payson, and married to George Prentiss, my old friend!!  I’ll go there to church to-morrow and see for myself.”  So it turns out that she was a Miss ——­, of Mississippi; that your father gallanted her to Louisville, when she was going there to be married at sixteen years of age; that she was living in Richmond at the time I was teaching there, her sister boarding in the house with me.  Such talking, such life and enthusiasm you never saw in a woman of forty-eight!  “Well,” she winds up at last, “I’ve found two treasures, and you needn’t think I’m going to let you go.  I’ll go home and tell Mr. ——­ all about it.”  Papa and I have called each other “two treasures”