ed Swiss travellers thought so! We came to one spot
where ice always is found, cut out big pieces, ate it, drank it, threw
it at each other and carried on with it generally. We had our dinner
on the grass in the woods. We brought home a small cartload of natural
brackets; some of them beautiful.

_August 1st._--You have indeed had a "rich experience." [11] We all read
your letter with the deepest interest and feel that it would have been
good to be there. Your account of Caro shows what force of character she
possessed, as well as what God's grace can do and do quickly. This is
not the first time He has ripened a soul into full Christian maturity
with almost miraculous rapidity. A veteran saint could not have laid
down his armor and adjusted himself to meet death with more calmness
than did this young disciple. I do not wonder her family were borne, for
the time, above their sorrow, but alas! their bitter pangs of anguish
are yet to meet them. Her poor mother! How much she has suffered and has
yet to suffer! all the more because she bears it so heroically.

_To Miss Emily S. Gilman, Hunter, Aug 1, 1864._

You must have wondered why I did not answer your letter and your book,
for both of which I thank you. Well, it has been such dry, warm weather,
that I have not felt like writing; besides, for nurse I have only a
little German girl fourteen years old, who never was out of New York
before, and whom I have been so determined on spoiling that I couldn't
bear to take her off from her play to mend, patch, darn, wash faces,
necks, feet, etc., and unconsciously did every thing there was to do
for the children and a little more besides. I like the little book very
much. You have the greatest knack, you girls, of lighting on nice books
and nice hymns. We are right in the midst of most charming walks. Here
is a grove and there is a brook; here is a creek, almost a river (big
enough at any rate to get on to the map) and there a mountain. As to
ferns and mosses for your poetical side, and as for raspberries and
blackberries for your t'other side, time would fail me if I should begin
to speak of them. I think a great deal of you and your sisters when off
on foraging expeditions, and wish you were here notwithstanding you are
mossy and ferny there. We have as yet made only one excursion. That was
delightful and gave us our first true idea of the Catskills. Before
Mr. P. came I usually went off on my forenoon walk alone, unless the