tiful than Pampa, or even feather-grass.

A. is driven to death about a fair for the Young Women's Christian
Association. I have given it a German tragedy which I translated a few
years ago. [7] They expect to make $1,600 on it, but Randolph says if
they make half that they may thank their stars. I have spent all my
evenings of late in revising it, and it goes to the printers to-day.
George is going to deliver a literary lecture for the same object this
evening, this being the age of obedient parents. No, I never saw and
never painted any window-screens. The best things I have done are
trailing arbutus and apple-blossoms. A. invited me to do apple-blossoms
for her, and said she should have to own that I had more artistic
power than herself. I don't agree with her, but it is a matter of no
consequence, anyhow. It is a shame for you to buy Little Lou; I meant to
send you one and thought I had done so. The bright speeches are mostly
genuine, made by Eddy Hopkins and Ned and Charley P.

How came you to have blooming hepaticas? It is outrageous. My plants do
better this winter than ever before. I have had hyacinths in bloom, and
a plant given me, covered with red berries, has held its own. It hangs
in a glass basket the boys gave me and has a white dove brooding over
it. Let me inform you that I have lost my mind. A friend dined with us
on Sunday, and I asked him when I saw him last. "Why, yesterday," he
said, "when I met you at Randolph's by appointment."

There, I must stop and go to work on one of my numerous irons.

The "German tragedy" referred to fell into her hands in the spring of
1869, and her letters, written at the time, show how it delighted her.
It is, indeed, a literary gem. The works of its author, Baron Muench-
Bellinghausen--for Friederich Halm is a pseudonym--are much less known
in this country than they deserve to be. He is one of the most gifted of
the minor poets of Germany, a master of vivid style and of impressive,
varied, and beautiful thought. _Griselda_ first appeared at Vienna in
1835. It was enthusiastically received and soon passed through several
editions.

The scene of the poem is laid in Wales, in the days of King Arthur. The
plot is very simple. Percival, count of Wales, who had married Griselda,
the daughter of a charcoal burner, appears at court on occasion of a
great festival, in the course of which he is challenged by Ginevra, the
Queen, to give an account of Griselda, and to tell how