29th.—­Do you want to know what mischief I’ve just been at?  There lay poor Miss ——­, alias “Weaky” as we call her, taking her siesta in the most innocent manner imaginable, with a babe-in-the-wood kind of air, which proved so highly attractive that I could do no less than pick her up in my arms and pop her (I don’t know but it was head first), right into the bathing-tub which happened to be filled with fresh cold water.  Poor, good little Weaky!  There she sits shaking and shivering and laughing with such perfect sweet humor, that I am positively taking a vow never to do so again.  Well, I had something quite sentimental to say to you when I began writing, but as the spirit moved me to the above perpetration of nonsense, I’ve nothing left in me but fun, and for that you’ve no relish, have you?

I made out to cry yesterday and thereby have so refreshed my soul as to be in the best possible humor just now.  The why and wherefore of my tears, which by the way I don’t shed once in an age, was briefly the withdrawal from school of one of my scholars, one who had so attached herself to me as to have become almost a part of myself, and whom I had taught to love you, dear Anna, that I might have the exquisite satisfaction of talking about you every day—­a sort of sweet interlude between grammar and arithmetic which made the dull hours of school grow harmonious.  She had a presentiment that her life was to close with our school session, from which I couldn’t move her even when her health was good, and she says that she prays every day, not that her life may be lengthened, but that she may die before I am gone.  I am superstitious enough to feel that the prayer may have its answer, now that I see her drooping and fading away without perceptible disease.  The only time I ever witnessed the rite of confirmation was when the hands of the good bishop rested upon her head, and no wonder if I have half taken up arms in defense of this “laying-on of hands,” out of the abundance of my heart if not from the wisdom of my head.  Well, I’ve lost my mirthful mood, speaking of her, and don’t know when it will come again.

I have taken it into my head that you will visit Niagara on your way home from the South and have half a mind to go there myself.  Did your brother bring home the poems of R. M. Milnes?  I half hope that he did not, since I want to see you enjoy them for the first time, particularly a certain “Household Brownie” story, with which I fell in love when President Woods sent us the volume.

Here follow a few entries in her diary: 

May 1.—–­Holiday.  Into the country all of us, white, black, and gray.  Sue Empie devoted herself to me like a lover and so did Sue Lewis, so I was not at a loss for society.  My girls made a bower, wherein I was ensconced and obliged to tell stories to about forty listeners till my tongue ached. July 18th.—­Left Richmond. Aug. 2nd.—­Left Reading