cellent. Many men shed tears in speaking for reunion,
and, from what Mr. Stearns reports of the meeting of the Committee
last night, union may be considered as good as restored. You will hear
nothing else from me; it is all I hear talked about. _Monday, 3l_.--Hot
as need be. Dr. B., of Brooklyn, dined with us; said he never ate
strawberry short-cake before, and was reading Katy. It is awful to think
how many D.D.s are doing it (eating short-cake, I mean, of course!) Hope
the Assembly will wind up to-night. _June 5_.--We are so glad you have
got to La Tour and find it so pleasant there, and that you have met Dr.
and Mrs. Guthrie, and that they have met you instead of the blowsy-towsy
American women, who make one so ashamed of them. If I wasn't going to
Dorset, I should wish I were going where you are; but then, you see, I
_am_ going to Dorset!... I have been to the Central Park with Mrs.
---, who talked in one steady stream all the way. I was sleepy and
the carriage very noisy; and take it altogether, what a farce life is
sometimes! the intercourse of human beings outsides touching outsides,
the heart and soul lying to all intents and purposes as dead as a
door-nail. Do you ever feel mentally and spiritually alone in the world?
Perhaps everybody does.

_To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, June 4, 1869._

I concluded you had gone and died and got buried without letting me
know, when your letter reached me _via_ Dorset. What possessed you
to send it there when you knew, you naughty thing! that I was
having General Assembly, I can't imagine; but I suppose, being a
Congregationalist, you thought General Assembly wasn't nothing, and that
I could entertain squads of D.D.s for a fortnight more or less, just as
well at Dorset as I could here. My dear, read the papers and go in the
way you should go, and behave yourself! As if 250 ministers haven't worn
streaks in the grass round the church, haven't (some of 'em) been here
to dinner and eaten my strawberry short-cake and cottage puddings and
praised my coffee and drank two cups apiece all round, and as if I
hadn't been set up on end for those of 'em to look at who are reading
Katy, and as if going furiously to work, after they'd all gone,
didn't use me up and send me "lopping" down on sofas, sighing like a
what's-its-name. Well, well; the ignorance of you country folks and the
wisdom of us city folks! We hope to get to Dorset by the 17th of this
month; it depends upon how many inter