d his namesake on Sunday. We have enjoyed his visit more than
tongue can tell. George says _he_ has enjoyed it as much as he thought
he should, and I am sure I have enjoyed it a great deal more, as I have
been so much better in health than I expected. But how you must miss
him!

On the 12th of September--a faultless autumn day--she set out with her
husband and eldest daughter for Chamouni. It was her first excursion
for pleasure since coming to Switzerland. A visit to this great and
marvelous handiwork of God is an event in the dullest life. In her
case the experience was so full of delight, that it seemed almost to
compensate for the cares and disappointments of the whole previous year.
The plan was to return to Genevrier and then pass on to the Bernese
Oberland, but the visit to Chamouni proved to be her last as well as her
first pleasure excursion in Switzerland.

_To Mrs. Stearns, Genevrier, October 2, 1859._

I have, been so absorbed with anxiety about the children since we
got back from our journey, that I have not felt like writing you a
description of it. George told you, I suppose, that the news awaiting us
when we reached Vevay was of the baby's having whooping-cough. It was
a great shock to us, for the weather was dismally cold, and it did not
seem as if the little thing could get safely through the disease at so
unfavorable a time of year. Then there were the other two to have it
also. On Friday last baby's cry had become a sad sort of wail, and he
was so pale and weak, that I did not see how he was going to rally; but
he is better to-day, so that I begin to take breath.... To go back to
Chamouni, it seems a mercy that we went when we did. We enjoyed the
whole trip. We made the excursion to the Mer de Glace in a pouring rain,
without injury to any of us, and were well repaid for our trouble by the
novelty of the whole expedition and the extraordinary sights we saw.
George intended taking us to the Oberland if we found the children
well on our return, but all hope of accomplishing another journey was
destroyed when we found what different business was before us. It is a
real disappointment, for the weather is now mild and very fine, just
adapted to journeying, and so many things have conspired to confine
me to this spot, that I have found it quite hard to be as patient and
cheerful as I am sure I ought to be. Alas and alas! what an insatiable
thing human nature is! How it craves _every_ thing the world can