was a certificate of life membership to something; I
did not hear what. It was just a large piece of parchment, but they said
it cost $25. Miss Lizzie Bull is my Sunday School teacher now. She asked
us last Sunday to look up a place in the Bible where the trees held a
consultation together, to see which one should reign over them. I did
not remember any such thing, but I looked it up in the concordance and
found it in Judges 9: 8. I found the meaning of it in Scott's Commentary
and wrote it down and she was very much pleased, and told us next Sunday
to find out all about Absalom.

_July._--Our sensitive plant is growing nicely and it is quite a
curiosity. It has fern-like leaves and when we touch them, they close,
but soon come out again. Anna and I keep them performing.

_September_ 1.--Anna and I go to the seminary now. Mr. Richards and Mr.
Tyler are the principals. Anna fell down and sprained her ankle to-day
at the seminary, and had to be carried into Mrs. Richards' library. She
was sliding down the bannisters with little Annie Richards. I wonder
what she will do next. She has good luck in the gymnasium and can beat
Emma Wheeler and Jennie Ruckle swinging on the pole and climbing the
rope ladder, although they and Sarah Antes are about as spry as
squirrels and they are all good at ten pins. Susie Daggett and Lucilla
Field have gone to Farmington, Conn., to school.

_Monday._--I received a letter from my brother John in New Orleans, and
his ambrotype. He has grown amazingly. He also sent me a N. O. paper and
it gave an account of the public exercises in the school, and said John
spoke a piece called "The Baron's Last Banquet," and had great applause
and it said he was "a chip off the old block." He is a very nice boy, I
know that. James is sixteen years old now and is in Princeton College.
He is studying German and says he thinks he will go to Germany some day
and finish his education, but I guess in that respect he will be very
much disappointed. Germany is a great ways off and none of our relations
that I ever heard of have ever been there and it is not at all likely
that any of them ever will. Grandfather says, though, it is better to
aim too high than not high enough. James is a great boy to study. They
had their pictures taken together once and John was holding some flowers
and James a book and I guess he has held on to it ever since.

_Sunday._--Polly Peck looked so funny on the front seat of the gallery.
S