s very pretty
and complete, and the audience have a "ring" in them that sounds in the
ear. I go from here to Philadelphia to read to-morrow night and Friday,
come through here again on Saturday on my way to Washington, come back
here on Saturday week for two finishing nights, then go to Philadelphia
for two farewells, and so turn my back on the southern part of the
country. Distances and travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of
readings by two, leaving eighty-two in all. Of course we afterwards
discovered that we had finally settled the list on a Friday! I shall be
halfway through it at Washington, of course, on a Friday also, and my
birthday!

Dolby and Osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in
spirits (I am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), have decided to
have a walking-match at Boston, on Saturday, February 29th. Beginning
this design in joke, they have become tremendously in earnest, and Dolby
has actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for a pair of
seamless socks to walk in. Our men are hugely excited on the subject,
and continually make bets on "the men." Fields and I are to walk out six
miles, and "the men" are to turn and walk round us. Neither of them has
the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. Being requested by both
to give them "a breather" yesterday, I gave them a stiff one of five
miles over a bad road in the snow, half the distance uphill. I took them
at a pace of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such
objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and
both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. They
have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and
continually get up in the maddest manner and see _how high they can
kick_ the wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with
their pencil-marks. To see them doing this--Dolby, a big man, and
Osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond description.

PHILADELPHIA, _Same Night._

We came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but up to time. Fanny
Kemble (who begins to read shortly) is coming to "Marigold" and "Trial"
to-morrow night. I have written her a note, telling her that if it will
at all assist _her_ movements to know _mine_, my list is at her
service. Probably I shall see her to-morrow. Tell Mamie (to whom I will
write next), with my love, that I found her lett