sure while we live,
'Tis religion can supply
Solid comfort when we die."

_December 1._--Grandfather asked me to read President Pierce's message
aloud to him this evening. I thought it was very long and dry, but he
said it was interesting and that I read it very well. I am glad he liked
it. Part of it was about the Missouri Compromise and I didn't even know
what it meant.

_December 8._--We are taking dictation lessons at school now. Miss Clark
reads to us from the "Life of Queen Elizabeth" and we write it down in a
book and keep it. She corrects it for us. I always spell "until" with
two l's and she has to mark it every time. I hope I will learn how to
spell it after a while.

_Saturday, December 9._--We took our music lessons to-day. Miss Hattie
Heard is our teacher and she says we are getting along well. Anna
practiced her lesson over sixty-five times this morning before breakfast
and can play "Mary to the Saviour's Tomb" as fast as a waltz.

We chose sides and spelled down at school to-day. Julia Phelps and I
stood up the last and both went down on the same word--eulogism. I don't
see the use of that "e." Miss Clark gave us twenty words which we had to
bring into some stories which we wrote. It was real fun to hear them.
Every one was different.

This evening as we sat before the fire place with Grandmother, she
taught us how to play "Cat's Cradle," with a string on our fingers.

_December 25._--Uncle Edward Richards sent us a basket of lovely things
from New York for Christmas. Books and dresses for Anna and me, a
kaleidoscope, large cornucopias of candy, and games, one of them being
battledore and shuttlecock. Grandmother says we will have to wait until
spring to play it, as it takes so much room. I wish all the little girls
in the world had an Uncle Edward.

1854

_January 1, 1854._--About fifty little boys and girls at intervals
knocked at the front door to-day, to wish us Happy New Year. We had
pennies and cakes and apples ready for them. The pennies, especially,
seemed to attract them and we noticed the same ones several times. Aunt
Mary Carr made lovely New Year cakes with a pretty flower stamped on
before they were baked.

_February_ 4, 1854.--We heard to-day of the death of our little
half-sister, Julia Dey Richards, in Penn Yan, yesterday, and I felt so
sorry I couldn't sleep last night so I made up some verses about her and
this morning wrote them down and gave them to Grandfat