e
good time talking to them. And I think they had a good time too, for
they responded "as one man," to use Susy's unimprovable phrase.

Girls are charming creatures. I shall have to be twice seventy years old
before I change my mind as to that. I am to talk to a crowd of them this
afternoon, students of Barnard College (the sex's annex to Columbia
University), and I think I shall have as pleasant a time with those
lasses as I had with the Vassar girls twenty-one years ago.

_From Susy's Biography._

I stopped in the middle of mamma's early history to tell about our
tripp to Vassar because I was afraid I would forget about it, now I
will go on where I left off. Some time after Miss Emma Nigh died
papa took mamma and little Langdon to Elmira for the summer. When
in Elmira Langdon began to fail but I think mamma did not know just
what was the matter with him.

I was the cause of the child's illness. His mother trusted him to my
care and I took him a long drive in an open barouche for an airing. It
was a raw, cold morning, but he was well wrapped about with furs and, in
the hands of a careful person, no harm would have come to him. But I
soon dropped into a reverie and forgot all about my charge. The furs
fell away and exposed his bare legs. By and by the coachman noticed
this, and I arranged the wraps again, but it was too late. The child was
almost frozen. I hurried home with him. I was aghast at what I had done,
and I feared the consequences. I have always felt shame for that
treacherous morning's work and have not allowed myself to think of it
when I could help it. I doubt if I had the courage to make confession at
that time. I think it most likely that I have never confessed until now.

_From Susy's Biography._

At last it was time for papa to return to Hartford, and Langdon was
real sick at that time, but still mamma decided to go with him,
thinking the journey might do him good. But after they reached
Hartford he became very sick, and his trouble prooved to be
diptheeria. He died about a week after mamma and papa reached
Hartford. He was burried by the side of grandpa at Elmira, New
York. [Susy rests there with them.--S. L. C.] After that, mamma
became very very ill, so ill that there seemed great danger of
death, but with a great deal of good care she recovered. Some
months afterward mamma and papa [and Susy, who was perhaps