he little package of Japanese corn-seed and written me the note
and have had a moment even to look at A.'s portrait? It is a mystery to
me. You are a wonder of a woman! You are a genius! You are a _beloved
friend!_ I thank you again and again. Just think of the good you have
done us. Shall I send you some more daisies? I have written in the
greatest haste. That is the reason I have done no better and not because
I am seventy years old.

Here is her last note to Mrs. Washburn, dated June 3:

The box of daisies, clover, and grass came on Saturday. We set the
plants out in the box in which they came, and mixed the grass with what
cut flowers we had, in the very prettiest receptacle for flowers I ever
saw, just given M. The plants look this morning like a piece of Wildwood
and a piece of you, and will gladden every spring we live to see....
We are packing for Dorset, though we do not mean to go if this weather
lasts. I wonder if you have a "daily rose"? I have just bought one;
first heard of it at the Centennial. It is said to bloom every day from
May to December.

I am going out, now, to do ever so many errands for H.'s outfit for
college. Give our dear love to Mr. Washburn and Julia. O, what a mercy
it is to have somebody to love. [7]

On the 6th of June Mrs. Prentiss went to Dorset for the last time. Her
husband, after her departure, thus referred to this period:

For four or five weeks after coming here she was very much occupied
about the house, and seemed rather weary and care-worn. But the pressure
was then over and she had leisure for her flowers and her painting, for
going to the woods with the girls, and for taking her favorite drives
with me. She spoke repeatedly of you and other friends. On the 23d
of July I started for Monmouth Beach. The week preceding this little
journey was one of the happiest of our married life. No words can tell
how sweet and loving and bright--in a word, how just like herself--she
was. The impassion of that week accompanied me to the sea-side and
continued with me during my whole stay there. As day after day I sat
looking out upon the ocean, or walked alone up and down the shore, she
was still in all my thoughts. The noise of the breakers, the boundless
expanse of waters, the passing ships, going out and coming in, recalled
similar scenes long ago on the coast of Maine, before and after our
marriage--scenes with which her image was indissolubly blended. Then
I met old friends and fo