August 4th.—­Tuesday I went on a tramp with M. and brought home a gigantic bracket.  We met papa as we neared the house, and he had had his first bath in his new tank at the mill, and was wild with joy, as were also the boys.  After dinner I made a picture frame of mosses, lichens, and red and yellow toadstools, ever so pretty; then proofs came, then we had tea, and then went and made calls.  Yesterday on a tramp with M., who wanted mosses, then home with about a bushel of ground-pine.  Every minute of the afternoon I spent in trimming the grey room with the pine and getting up my bracket, and now the room looks like a bower of bliss.  I was to go with M. on another tramp to-day, but it rains, and rain is greatly needed.  The heat in New York is said to exceed anything in the memory of man, something absolutely appalling.

Friday.—­Here I am on the piazza with Miss K. by my side, reading the Life of Faber.  She got here last night in a beautiful moonlight, and as I had not told her about the scenery, she was so enchanted with it on opening her blinds this morning, that she burst into tears.  I drove her round Rupert and took her into Cheney’s woods, and the boys invited us down to their workshop; so we went, and I was astonished to find that the bath-house is really a perfect affair, with two dressing-rooms and everything as neat as a pink.  Miss K. is charmed with everything, the cornucopias, natural brackets, crosses, etc., and her delusion as to all of us, whom she fancies saints and angels, is quite charming, only it won’t last.

13th.—­There is a good deal of sickness about the village.  I made wine-jelly for four different people yesterday, and the rest of the morning Miss K., Mrs. Humphrey, and myself sat on a shawl in our woods, talking.  We have had a tremendous rain, to our great delight, and the air is cooler, but the grasshoppers, which are like the frogs of Egypt, are not diminished, and are devouring everything.  I got a letter from cousin Mary yesterday, who says she has no doubt we shall get the ocean up here, somehow, and raise our own oysters and clams.

16th.—­Papa and I went to Manchester to-day to make up a lot of calls, and among other persons, we saw Mrs. C. of Troy, a bright-eyed old lady who was a schoolmate of my mother’s.  She could not tell me anything about her except that she was very bright and animated, and that I knew before.  Mrs. Wickham asked me to write some letters for a fair to be held for their church to-morrow; so I wrote three in rhyme, not very good.

August 20th.—­After dinner papa went to Manchester, taking both boys, and I went off with M. to Cheney’s woods, where we got baskets full of moss, etc., and had a good time.  The children are all wild on the subject of flowers and spend the evening studying the catalogues, which they ought to know by heart.  I wonder if I have told you how our dog hates to remember the Sabbath day to keep