Feb. 13th.—­Mother is going to Boston with sister on Saturday, provided I am well enough (which I mean to be), as Mrs. Willis has expressed a strong wish to see her once more.  We heard from them yesterday again.  Poor Ellen’s coffin was placed just where she stood as a bride, less than eight months ago, and her little infant rested on her breast.  There is rarely a death so universally mourned as hers; she was the most winning and attractive young creature I ever saw.

Feb. 21st.—­Are you in earnest?  Are you in earnest?  Are you really coming home in March?  I am afraid to believe, afraid to doubt it.  I am crying and laughing and writing all at once.  You would not tell me so unless you really were coming, I know ...  And you are coming home!  (How madly my heart is beating! lie still, will you?) I almost feel that you are here and that you look over my shoulder and read while I write.  Are you sure that you will come?  Oh, don’t repent and send me another letter to say that you will wait till it is pleasanter weather; it is pleasant now.  I walked out this morning, and the air was a spring air, and gentlemen go through the streets with their cloaks hanging over their arms, and there is a constant plashing against the windows, of water dripping down from the melting snow; yes, I verily believe that it is warm, and that the birds will sing soon—­I do, upon my word ...  I wouldn’t have the doctor come and feel my pulse this afternoon for anything.  He would prescribe fever powders or fever drops, or something of the sort, and bleed me and send me to bed, or to the insane hospital; I don’t know which.  I could cry, sing, dance, laugh, all at once.  Oh, that I knew exactly when you will be here—­the day, the hour, the minute, that I might know to just what point to govern my impatient heart—­for it would be a pity to punish the poor little thing too severely.  I have been reading to-day something which delighted me very much; do you remember a little poem of Goethe’s, in which an imprisoned count sings about the flower he loves best, and the rose, the lily, the pink, and the violet, each in turn fancy themselves the objects of his love. [5] You see I put you in the place of the prisoner at the outset, and I was to be the flower of his love, whatever it might be.  Well, it was the “Forget-me-not.”  If there were a flower called the “Always-loving,” maybe I might find out to what order and class I belong.  Dear me; there’s the old clock striking twelve, and I verily meant to go to bed at ten, so as to sleep away as much of the time as possible before your coming, but I fell into a fit of loving meditation, and forgot everything else.  You should have seen me pour out tea to-night!  Why, the first thing I knew, I had poured it all out into my own cup till it ran over, and half filled the waiter, which is the first time I ever did such a ridiculous thing in my life.  But, dearest, I bid you good night, praying you may have sweet dreams and an inward prompting to write me a long, long, blessed letter, such as shall make me dance about the house and sing.