to see which we would marry. The last leaf tells the story. Anna’s came “rich man” every time and she thinks it is true because Eugene Stone has asked to marry her and he is quite well off. She is 13 and he is 17. He is going now to his home in St. Paul, Minn., but he is coming back for her some day. Tom Eddy is going to be groomsman and Emma Wheeler bridesmaid. They have all the arrangements made. She has not shown any of Eugene Stone’s notes to Grandmother yet for she does not think it is worth while. Anna broke the seal on Tom Eddy’s page in her mystic book, although he wrote on it, “Not to be opened until December 8, 1859.” He says:

“Dear Anna,—I hope that in a few years I will see you and Stone living on the banks of the Mississippi, in a little cottage, as snug as a bug in a rug, living in peace, so that I can come and see you and have a good time.—Yours,

Thos. C. Eddy.”

Anna says if she does marry Eugene Stone and he forgets, after two or three years to be as polite to her as he is now she shall look up at him with her sweetest smile and say, “Miss Anna, won’t you have a little more sugar in your tea?” When I went to school this morning Juliet Ripley asked, “Where do you think Anna Richards is now? Up in a cherry tree in Dr. Cheney’s garden.” Anna loves cherries. We could see her from the chapel window.

June 7.—Alice Jewett took Anna all through their new house to-day which is being built and then they went over to Mr. Noah T. Clarke’s partly finished house and went all through that. A dog came out of Cat Alley and barked at them and scared Anna awfully. She said she almost had a conniption fit but Emma kept hold of her. She is so afraid of thunder and lightning and dogs.

Old Friend Burling brought Grandfather a specimen of his handwriting to-day to keep. It is beautifully written, like copper plate. This is the verse he wrote and Grandfather gave it to me to paste in my book of extracts:

DIVINE LOVE. Could we with ink the ocean fill, Was the whole earth of parchment made, Was every single stick a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could that scroll contain the whole Though stretched from sky to sky.

Transcribed by William S. Burling, Canandaigua, 1859, in the 83rd year of his age.

Sunday, December 8, 1859.—Mr. E. M. Morse is our Sunday School teacher now and the Sunday School room is so crowded that we go up into the church for our class recitation. Abbie Clark, Fannie Gaylord and myself are the only scholars, and he calls us the three Christian Graces, faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these is charity. I am the tallest, so he says I am charity. We recite in Mr. Gibson’s pew, because it is farthest away and we do not disturb the other classes. He gave us some excellent advice to-day as to what was right and said if we ever had any doubts about anything we should never do it and should always be perfectly sure we are in the right before we act. He gave us two weeks ago a poem to learn by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is an apostrophe to God and very hard to learn. It is blank verse and has 85 lines in it. I have it committed at last and we are to recite it in concert. The last two lines are, “Tell thou the silent sky and tell the stars and tell yon rising sun, Earth with its thousand voices praises God.” Mr. Morse delivered a lecture in Bemis Hall last Thursday night. The subject was, “You and I.” It was splendid and he lent me the manuscript afterwards to read. Dick Valentine lectured in the hall the other night too. His subject was “Prejudice.” There was some difference in the lectures and the lecturers. The latter was more highly colored.

Friday.—The older ladies of the town have formed a society for the relief of the poor and are going to have a course of lectures in Bemis Hall under their auspices to raise funds. The lecturers are to be from the village and are to be: Rev. O. E. Daggett, subject, “Ladies and Gentlemen”; Dr. Harvey Jewett, “The House We Live In”; Prof. F. E. R. Chubbuck, “Progress”; Hon. H. W. Taylor, “The Empty Place”; Prof. E. G. Tyler, “Finance”; Mr. N. T. Clark, “Chemistry”; E. M. Morse, “Graybeard and His Dogmas.” The young ladies have started a society, too, and we have great fun and fine suppers. We met at Jennie Howell’s to organize. We are to meet once in two weeks and are to present each member with an album bed quilt with all our names on when they are married. Susie Daggett says she is never going to be married, but we must make her a quilt just the same. Laura Chapin sang, “Mary Lindsey, Dear,” and we got to laughing so that Susie Daggett and I lost our equilibrium entirely, but I found mine by the time I got home. Yesterday afternoon Grandfather asked us if we did not want to go to ride with him in the big two seated covered carriage which he does not get out very often. We said yes, and he stopped for Miss Hannah Upham and took her with us. She sat on the back seat with me and we rode clear to Farmington and kept up a brisk conversation all the way. She told us how she became lady principal of the Ontario Female Seminary in 1830. She was still telling us about it when we got back home.

December 23.—We have had a Christmas tree and many other attractions in Seminary chapel. The day scholars and townspeople were permitted to participate and we had a post office and received letters from our friends. Mr. E. M. Morse wrote me a fictitious one, claiming to be written from the north pole ten years hence. I will copy it in my journal for I may lose the letter. I had some gifts on the Christmas tree and gave some. I presented my teacher, Mr. Chubbuck, with two large hemstitched handkerchiefs with his initials embroidered in a corner of each. As he is favored with the euphonious name of Frank Emery Robinson Chubbuck it was a work of art to make his initials look beautiful. I inclosed a stanza in rhyme: