d and
pleasant exercise as exerted the most healthful, soothing influence upon
both body and soul. It was just this fruit her husband hoped might, by
the blessing of Heaven, blossom out of the new home, and in later years
he used often to say to her, that if the place should be of a sudden
annihilated, he should still feel that it had paid for itself many times
over.

_To Mrs. Smith, Dorset, July 19, 1869._

How many times during the last month I have been reminded of your saying
you had lived through the agony of getting your house ready to rent. I
can sum up all I have been through by saying that almost everything has
turned out the reverse of what I expected. In the first place, I broke
down just as we were to start to come here, and had to be left behind to
pick up life enough to undertake the journey; then the car we chartered
did not get here for a week, and nobody but A. had anything to wear, and
all my flowers died for want of water. The car, too, was broken into and
my idols of tin pans all taken, with some other things, and when it did
arrive it was unpacked, and our goods brought here, in a regular deluge,
the like of which has not been seen since the days of Noah. For days
everything was in dire confusion; but for all that our own home was
delightful, and we had the most outrageous appetites you ever heard
of. George is in ecstasies with his house, his land, his pig, and his
horse.... I hope you are not sick and tired of all this rigmarole;
it isn't in human nature to move into a house of its own and talk of
anything else. I got a warm-hearted letter a few days ago from the city
of Milwaukee, from an unknown western sister, beginning, "Whom not
having seen I love," and going on to say that Katy describes herself
and her lot exactly, only she had no Martha on hand. I get so many such
testimonies. I am going to spare your eyes and brains by winding up this
epistle and going to bed. I do not think your husband ought to come home
till he has recovered his power of sleeping. I know how to pity him, if
anybody does, and I know how loss of sleep cripples. Good-night, dear
child.

"God bless me and my wife;
You and your wife,
Us four
And no more."

_To Mrs. Leonard, Dorset, August 3, 1869._

Your last letter endeared you to me more than ever, and I have longed to
answer it, but we have been in such a state of confusion that writing
has been a task. The whole house has been painted inside and out sinc