I undertook to get up a nice dinner for Dr. and Mrs. V——­, about which I must now tell you.  First I was to have raw oysters on the shell. Blunder 1st, small tea-plates laid for them.  Ordered off, and big ones laid. Blunder 2d, five oysters to be laid on each plate, instead of which five were placed on platters at each end, making ten in all for the whole party!  Ordered a change to the original order.  Result, a terrific sound in the parlor of rushing feet and bombardment of oyster-shells.  Dinner was announced from Dr. P., who asked, helplessly, where he should place Mrs. V——. Blunder 4th by Mrs. P., who remarked that she had got fifty pieces of shell in her mouth. Blunder 5th by Dr. P., who failed to perceive that the boiled chickens were garnished with a stunning wine-jelly and regarding it as gizzards, presented it only to the boys! Blunder 6th.  Cranberry-jelly ordered.  Cranberry as a dark, inky fluid instead; gazed upon suspiciously by the guests, and tasted sparingly by the family.—­And now prepare for blunder No. 7, bearing in mind that it is the third course. Four prairie hens instead of two!  The effect on the Rev. Mrs. E. Prentiss was a resort to her handkerchief, and suppression of tears on finding none in her pocket. Blunder 8th.  Iauch’s biscuit glace stuffed with hideous orange-peel. Delight 1st, delicious dessert of farina smothered in custard and dear to the heart of Dr. V——. Blunder 9th.  No hot milk for the coffee, delay in scalding it, and at last serving it in a huge cracked pitcher. Blunder 10th.  Bananas, grapes, apples, and oranges forgotten at the right moment and passed after the coffee and of course declined.  But hearing that Miss H. V. was fond of bananas, I seized the fruit-basket and poured its contents into one napkin, and a lot of chocolate-cake into another, and sent them to the young princesses in the parsonage, who are, no doubt, dying of indigestion, this morning.  Give my love to C. and F., and a judicious portion to the old birds.

To a young Friend, Oct. 19,1873.

I am sorry that we played hide-and-go-seek with each other when you were in town.  I have seen all my most intimate friends since I came home; I mean all who live here.  There are just eight of them, but they fill my heart so that I should have said, at a guess, there were eighty!  Try the experiment on yourself and tell me how many such friends you have.  It is very curious.

I have just got hold of some leaves of a journal rescued from the flames by my (future) husband, written at the age of 22, in which I describe myself as “one great long sunbeam.”  It recalled the sweet life in Christ I was then leading, and made me feel that if I had got so far on as a girl, I ought to be infinitely farther on as a woman.  Still, in spite of all shame and regrets, I had a long list of mercies to recount at the communion-table to-day.