ever since she went away.  The whole scene worked him up and did him good, for he always loves to have his Southern friends drum him up and talk to him of your Uncle Seargent and Aunt Anna.  Mr. ——­ is one of our millionaires, and she married him a year ago after thirteen years of widowhood.  She says she still has 200 “negroes,” who won’t go away and won’t work, and she has them to support.  She talked very rationally about the war, and says not a soul at the South would have slavery back if they could....  I called at Mrs. B.’s yesterday—­at exactly the right moment, she said; for five surgeons had just decided that the operation had been a failure, and that she must die.  Her husband looked as white as this paper, and the girls were in great distress, but Mrs. B. looked perfectly radiant.

Saturday, March 5th.—­Yesterday I went to make a ghostly call on Mrs. B., and kept her and the girls screaming with laughter for an hour, which did me lots of good, and I hope did not hurt them.  I have written the 403d page of my serial to-day, and hope it is the last.  It will soon be time to think of the spring shopping.  I don’t know what any of us need, and never notice what people are wearing unless I notice by going forth on a tour of observation.

Sunday Evening.—­After church this afternoon Mrs. N. and Mrs. V. came in to tell us about the death of that servant of theirs, whom they nursed in their own house, who has been dying for seven months, of cancer.  She died a most fearless, happy death, and I wish I knew I should be as patient in my last illness as they represent her as being.  Your letters to the children came yesterday afternoon to their great delight.  In an evil moment I told the boys that I had seen it stated, in some paper, that benzole would make paper transparent, and afterwards evaporate and leave the paper uninjured.  They drove me raving distracted with questions about it, so that I had to be put in a strait-jacket.  The ingenuity and persistence of these questions, asked by each, in separate interviews, was beyond description.

Tuesday.—­For once I have been caught napping, and have not mailed my weekly letter.  But you will be expecting some irregularity about the time of your flight to Berlin.  I called at Mrs. M.’s to-day, and ran on at such a rate that Mrs. Woolsey, who was there, gave me ten dollars for poor folks, and said she wished I’d stay all day.  Afterwards I went down town to get Stepping Heavenward for Mr. C., and as he wanted me to write something in it, have just written this:  “Mr. C. from Mrs. Prentiss, in loving memory of one who ‘did outrun’ us, and stepped into heaven first.”  Mr. Bates showed me a half-column notice of it in the Liberal Christian, [3] of all places! by very far the warmest and best of all that have appeared.  Papa is at Dr. McClintock’s funeral.  I declare, if it isn’t snowing again, and the sun is shining!  Now comes a letter from Uncle Charles, saying that your Uncle H. has