room! did you?), and there I spread out my mosses and my twigs and my
cones and my leaves and admired them till I had to go out and walk to
compose myself. Then the children came home and they all admired too,
and among us we upset my big work-basket and my little work-basket, and
didn't any of us care. My only fear is that with all you had to do you
did too much for me. Those little red moss cups are _too_ lovely! and as
to all those leaves how I shall leaf out! G. asked me who sent me all
those beautiful things. "Miss Warner," quoth I absently. "Didn't Miss
Anna send any of them?" he exclaimed. So you see you twain do not pass
as one flesh here. I have read all the "Books of Blessing" [7] save
Gertrude and her Cat--but though I like them all very much, my favorite
is still "The Prince in Disguise." If you come across a little book
called "Earnest," [8] published by Randolph, do read it. It is one of
the few _real_ books and ought to do good. I have outdone myself in
picture-frames since you left. I got a pair of nippers and some wire,
which were of great use in the operation. I am now busy on Mr. Bull, for
Mr. Prentiss' study.

To one of her sisters-in-law she wrote, under the same date:

I do not know as I ever was so discouraged about my health as I have
been this fall. Sometimes I think my constitution is quite broken down,
and that I never shall be good for anything again. However, I do not
worry one way or the other but try to be as patient as I can. I have
been a good deal better for some days, and if you could see our house
you would not believe a word about my not being well, and would know my
saying so was all a sham. To tell the truth, it does look like a garden,
and when I am sick I like to lie and look at what I did when I wasn't;
my wreaths, and my crosses, and my vines, and my toadstools, and other
fixins. Yesterday I made a bonnet of which I am justly proud; to-morrow
I expect to go into mosses and twigs, of which Miss Anna Warner has just
sent me a lot. She and her sister were here about a fortnight. They grow
good so fast that there is no keeping track of them. Does any body in
Portland take their paper? [9] The children are all looking forward to
Christmas with great glee. It is a mercy there are any children to keep
up one's spirits in these times. Was there ever anything so dreadful as
the way in which our army has just been driven back! [10] But if we had
had a brilliant victory perhaps the people