xpects to sell some
eight hundred or a thousand of them.... The improvements here are
wonderful. They build chiefly of brown freestone and noble edifices
of five and six stories with a good deal of architectural
pretension.... I sat three times for lithographs yesterday and with
vastly better success than before. The pictures are all very like
and very pleasing. I am to have one which will fall to your lot as
a matter of course. Your letter of Tuesday reached me this morning.
You ought to have had three letters from me by Tuesday evening.
F.'s [the author's daughter Frances] shawl went by "A." I suppose
it is a courting shawl. It is almost the only one of the kind
Stewart had--a little too grave perhaps but scarcely so for the
country. Stewart is making a palace of a store. He takes the whole
front of the block on Broadway with fifteen windows in front--and
all of marble. With the tenderest regards to all, I remain yours
Most affectionately, J.F.C.

[Illustration: STEWART'S MARBLE PALACE.]

[Illustration: MISS SUSAN AUGUSTA COOPER ABOUT 1850.]

Miss Cooper makes alive each season's charms, as they pass over the
Glimmerglass and wane beyond Hannah's Hill. From gentry to
humble-folk, real Cooperstown types appear and disappear among these
pages; and even the "half-a-dozen stores" have place, where "at the same
counter you may buy kid gloves and a spade; a lace veil and a jug of
molasses; a satin dress and a broom," among other things of even greater
variety. She tells how St. Valentine's Day was celebrated in a very
original way as _Vrouwen-Daghe_, or women's day of the old Dutch
colonists.

[Illustration: OTSEGO LAKE PARTY IN 1840.]

She also records that first lake party to Point Judith, given by her
grandfather, Judge Cooper, in August, 1799, but leaves the description
of her father's lake parties to Mr. Keese: "He was fond of picnic
excursions on the lake, generally to the _Three Mile Point_, and often
with a party of gentlemen to Gravelly, where the main treat was a
chowder, which their host made up with great gusto. He could also brew a
bowl of punch for festive occasions, though he himself rarely indulged
beyond a glass of wine for dinner." Concerning these festivities Mr.
Keese adds: "Lake excursions until 1840 were made by a few private boats
or the heavy, flat-bottomed skiff which worthy Dick Case kept moored at
the foot of Fair Str