offer,
instead of contenting itself with what ought to content it. However, I
shall soon get over my fidgets, and as to George, of course he is only
disappointed for me and A., as he has visited the Oberland, and was only
going to give us pleasure. And, if I must choose between the two, I'd
rather have the littlest baby in the world than see all the biggest
mountains in it. We are thankful to hear that mother still continues to
be so well. We long to see her, and I think a look at her or a smile
from her would do George good like a medicine.

_October 17th._--I went to church yesterday for the first time in ten
months; we came out at half-past ten, so you see we have a tolerably
long day before us when church is done. It is not at all like going to
church at home; you not only find it painful to listen with such strict
attention as the foreign tongue requires, but you miss the neat,
well-ordered sanctuary, the picture of family life (for there are
no little children present!) and the agreeable array of dress. The
flapping, monstrous bloomers tire your eyes, and so do the grotesque,
coarse clothes and the tokens of extreme poverty. I grow more and more
patriotic every day, and am astonished at what I see and hear of life in
Europe.

I snatched one afternoon when the baby was better than usual to go to
Villeneuve with George to call on Mr. and Mrs. H. and the sister of Mrs.
H., who is one of our Mercer street young ladies. They were at the Hotel
Byron, where you stayed. What a beautiful spot it is! Mr. H. afterwards
came and dined with us, and was so charmed with the place that he was
tempted to take it when we leave; his wife, however, had set her heart
on going home at that time, as she had left one child there. The vintage
is going on here at Genevrier to-day, and we are all invited to go and
eat our fill.

_To Mrs. Henry B. Smith, Genevrier, Oct. 20, 1859._

You ask how I find time to make flower-pictures. Why, I have been
confined to the house a good deal by the baby's sickness, and could
hardly set myself about anything else when I was not watching and
worrying about him. When we got home from Chamouni we found him with
what proved to be a very serious disease in the case of so young a
child. It has shaken his little frame nearly to pieces, leaving him
after weeks of suffering not much bigger than a doll, and all eyes and
bones. It was a pretty hard struggle for life, and I hardly know how he
has weathered the