ps that is the cause of all
these clouds and showers; I must be making a severe drain on the
economy of heaven. From breakfast to dinner I remain on the balcony,
and read aloud several chapters of the "Memoires" of Dumas, by way of
practice. A dictionary lies by me, and I suffer no word to pass without
a perfect definition. Then comes my French grammar, which I study while
knitting or sewing, which takes very nearly until dinner-time. After
that, I do as I please, either reading or talking, until sunset when we
can ride or walk; the walk being always sweetened with sugar-cane. The
evening we always spend on the balcony. Is that _grand air_ enough? _O
mon teint! je serai joliment brune!_

We three girls occupy the same room, since Gibbes's arrival, and have
ever so much fun and not half enough sleep. I believe the other two
complain of me as the cause; but I plead not guilty. I never was known
to laugh aloud, no matter how intense might have been my mirth; "it
won't come," as Gibbes murmured last night while reading aloud Artemus
Ward's last letter, when we discovered it was suppressed laughter,
rather than suppressed pain, that caused him to writhe so. On the other
hand, Anna and Miriam laugh as loud and lustily as daughters of the
Titans--if the respectable gentlemen had daughters. I confess to doing
more than half the talking, but as to the laugh that follows, not a
bit. Last night I thought they would go wild, and I too laughed myself
into silent convulsions, when I recited an early effusion of my poetic
muse for their edification. Miriam made the bedstead prance, fairly,
while Anna's laugh sounded like a bull of Bashan with his head in a
bolster case.

Saturday, October 11th.

Miriam went off to Clinton before daylight yesterday, with Mr. Carter
and Mrs. Worley. She would not let me go for fear mother should keep
us. At midnight they got back last night, tired, sleepy, and
half-frozen, for our first touch of cool weather came in a strong north
wind in the evening which grew stronger and stronger through the night,
and they had worn only muslin dresses. I shall never cease to regret
that I did not go too. Miriam says mother is looking very sad. Sad, and
I am trying to forget all our troubles, and am so happy here! O mother,
how selfish it was to leave you! I ask myself whether it were best to
stay there where we would only be miserable without adding anything to
your c