are glad you have seen those remarkable
scenes [at Ober-Ammergau].One would fancy it would become an old story.
I should not like to see the crucifixion; it must be enough to turn
one's hair white in a single night.

_Saturday._--Yesterday I went with the children to walk round Rupert. We
turned off the road to please the boys, to a brook with a sandy beach,
where all three fell to digging wells, and I fell to collecting wild
grape-vine and roots for my rustic work, and fell into the brook
besides. We all enjoyed ourselves so much that we wished we had our
dinners and could stay all day. On the way home, just as we got near
Col. Sykes', we spied papa with the phaeton, and all got in. We must
have cut a pretty figure, driving through the village; M. in my lap, G.
in papa's, and H. everywhere in general.

_July 14th._--Miss Vance was in last evening after tea, and says our
lawn is getting on extremely well and that our seeds are coming up
beautifully. This greatly soothed M.'s and my own uneasy heart, as we
had rather supposed the lawn ought to be a thick velvet, and the seeds
we sowed two weeks ago up and blooming. If vegetable corresponded to
animal life, this would be the case. Fancy that what were eggs long
after we came here, and then naked birds, are now full-fledged creatures
on the wing, all off getting to housekeeping, each on his own hook!

_July 18th._--M. and I went on a tramp this forenoon and while we were
gone Mrs. M. O. R. and Mary and Mrs. Van W. called. They brought news of
the coming war. Papa showed them all over the house, not excepting your
room, which I think a perfect shame--for the room looks forlorn. I think
men ought to be suppressed, or something done to them. Maria told me
she thought papa's sermon Sunday was "ilegant." _21st._--I feel greatly
troubled lest this dreadful war should cut us off from each other. Mr.
Butler writes that he does not see how people are to get home, and we
do not see either. Papa says it will probably be impossible to have the
Evangelical Alliance. And how prices of finery will go up!

_July 27th._--M.'s and my own perseverance at our flower-bed is
beginning, at last, to be rewarded. We have portulaccas, mignonette,
white candy-tuft, nasturtiums, eutocas, etc.; and the morning-glories,
which are all behindhand, are just beginning to bloom. Never were
flowers so fought for. It is the lion and the unicorn over again. I have
nearly finished "Soll und Haben," and feel