ny of us know what he won't make us do! I enjoyed
the Centennial more than I expected to do, but got my fill very soon,
and was glad to go home.

No account of the Dorset home would be complete without some reference
to "the old mill." It had been dismantled during the war, but, at the
request of the neighbors, was now restored to its original use. It also
contained the boys' workshop, a bathing-room, an ice-house, a ram, and
a bowling-alley; formed, indeed, together with the pond and the boat,
part and parcel of the Dorset home itself.

_To Mrs. James Donaghe, Dorset, July 15, 1876._

I have hardly put pen to paper since I came here. I never could endure
heat; it always laid me flat. Yesterday there was a let-up to the torrid
zone, and to-day it is comparatively cool. Yesterday the mother of our
pastor here got her release. I cried for joy, for she has been a great
sufferer, and had longed to die. What a mystery death is! I went in to
see how she was, and she had just breathed her last, and there lay her
poor old body, eighty-two years old, looking as rent and torn as one
might suppose it would after a fight of thirty years between the soul
and itself. I have wondered if the heat, so dreadful to many, had not
been good for you. A rheumatic boy, who works for us off and on, says it
has been splendid for him. We heard yesterday that Dr. Schaff had lost
his eldest daughter after a ten days' illness with typhoid fever. He has
been greatly afflicted again and again and again by such bereavements,
but this must be hardest of all. [11] There is a different religious
atmosphere here now from anything we have ever known. The ladies hoped
to begin the Bible-readings right off, but it was out of the question. I
expect such a number of guests this week that I dare not undertake it.
I wish you were coming, too. How you would enjoy sitting on the piazza
watching the shadows on the mountains! We have had some magnificent
sunsets this season. Mr. Prentiss and I drive every night after tea, a
regular old Darby and Joan. Generally, I prefer working in the garden
to driving, but this time it has been too hot, and we have next to no
flowers. It quite grieves me that I have nothing to lay on Grandma
Pratt's coffin. However, _she won't care!_ Won't it be nice to get rid
of these frail, troublesome bodies of ours, and live without them! I
hope I shall see you in heaven, with plenty of room and no rheumatism.
How could you make such a time