as it is a good point
from which to make excursions on foot or otherwise, he and Mr. Stearns
have already made several trips and seen splendid sights. How much we
have to be grateful for! For my part, I would rather--far rather--have
come here and stayed here blindfold, than not to have come with my dear
husband. So all I have seen and am experiencing I regard as beauty and
felicity _thrown in_.

_To Mrs. Abigail Prentiss, Chateau d'Oex, Sept. 5, 1858._

I wish we had you, my dear mother, here among these mountains, for the
cool, bracing air would help to build you up. Both Mr. Stearns and
George have come back from Germany looking better than when they started
on their trip two weeks ago. It has been very cold; the thermometer some
mornings at eight o'clock standing at 46, and the mountains being all
covered with snow. We slept with a couple of bottles of hot water at our
feet, and two blankets and a comforter of eiderdown over us, after going
to bed early to get warm. My sewing-machine is a great comfort, and the
peasants enjoy coming down from the mountains to see it. Besides, I find
something to do on it every day.

I often wish I could set you down in the midst of the church to which we
go every Sunday, if only to show you how the people dress. A bonnet is
hardly seen there; everybody wearing a black silk cap or a bloomer. _I_
wear a bloomer; a brown one trimmed with brown ribbon. An old lady sits
in front of me who wears a white cap much after the fashion of yours,
and on top of that is perked a monstrous bloomer trimmed with black
gauze ribbon. Her dress is linsey-woolsey, and for outside garment she
wears a black silk half-handkerchief, as do all the rest. No light dress
or ribbon is seen. I must tell you now something that amused A. and me
very much yesterday at dinner. A French gentleman, who married a Spanish
lady four years ago, sits opposite us at the table, and he and his
wife are quite fascinated with M., watch all her motions, and whisper
together about all she does. Yesterday they got to telling us that the
lady had been married when only twelve years old to a gentleman of
thirty-two, had two children, and was a grandmother, though not yet
thirty-six years old. She said she carried her doll with her to her
husband's house, and he made her learn a geography lesson every day till
she was fourteen, when she had a baby of her own. I asked her if she
loved her husband, and she said "Oh, yes," only he was v