_Monday, March 30th._

Without any artificial aid, I got a splendid night's rest last night,
and consequently am very much freshened up to-day. Yesterday I had a
fine walk by the sea, and to-day I have had another on the heights
overlooking it.

BOSTON, _Tuesday, 31st._

I have safely arrived here, just in time to add a line to that effect,
and get this off by to-morrow's English mail from New York. Catarrh
rather better. Everything triumphant last night, except no sleep again.
I suppose Dolby to be now on his way back to join me here. I am much
mistaken if the political crisis do not damage the farewells by almost
one half.

I hope that I am certainly better altogether.

My room well decorated with flowers, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Fields
coming to dinner. They are the most devoted of friends, and never in the
way and never out of it.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

BOSTON, _Wednesday, April 1st, 1868._

I received your letter of from the 14th to the 17th of March, here, last
night. My New York doctor has prescribed for me promptly, and I hope I
am better. I am certainly no worse. We shall do (to the best of my
belief) _very well_ with the farewells here and at New York, but not
greatly. Everything is at a standstill, pending the impeachment and the
next presidential election. I forgot whether I told you that the New
York press are going to give me a public dinner, on Saturday, the 18th.

I hear (but not from himself) that Wills has had a bad fall in hunting,
and is, or has been, laid up. I am supposed, I take it, not to know this
until I hear it from himself.

_Thursday._

My notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. It
is not at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. Every pulpit
in Massachusetts will resound to violent politics to-day and to-night.
You remember the Hutchinson family?[24] I have had a grateful letter
from John Hutchinson. He speaks of "my sister Abby" as living in New
York. The immediate object of his note is to invite me to the marriage
of his daughter, twenty-one years of age.

You will see by the evidence of this piece of paper that I am using up
my stationery. Scott has just been making anxious calculations as to our
powers of holding out in the articles of tooth-powder, etc. The
calculations encourage him to believe that we shall just hold out, a