omfort or pleasure, or to be here, careless and happy while you
are in that horrid hole so sad and lonesome. According to my theory,
Miriam would remind me that I say it is better to have three miserable
persons than two happy ones whose happiness occasions the misery of the
third. That is my doctrine only in peculiar cases; it cannot be applied
to this one. I say that if, for example, Miriam and I should love the
same person, while that person loved only me, rather than make her
unhappy by seeing me marry him, I would prefer making both him and
myself miserable, by remaining single. She says "Fudge!" which means, I
suppose, nonsense. But our happiness here does not occasion mother's
unhappiness. She would rather see us enjoying ourselves here than
moping there. One proof is, that she did not suggest our return. She
longs to get home, but cannot leave poor Lilly alone, for Charlie is in
Granada. Oh, how willingly I would return to the old wreck of our home!
All its desolation could not be half so unendurable as Clinton. But
Lilly cannot be left. Poor Lilly! When I look at her sad young face, my
heart bleeds for her. With five helpless little children to care for,
is she not to be pitied? I think that such a charge, in such dreadful
days, would kill me. How patiently she bears it!

Thursday, October 16th.

It seems an age since I have opened this book. How the time has passed
since, I have but a vague idea, beyond that it has passed very
pleasantly.... Once since, I have been with Mrs. Badger to a Mr.
Powell, who has started quite an extensive shoe-making establishment,
in the vain attempt to get something to cover my naked feet. I am so
much in need that I have been obliged to borrow Lydia's shoes every
time I have been out since she returned. This was my second visit
there, and I have no greater satisfaction than I had at first. He got
my measure, I got his promise, and that is the end of it, thus far. His
son, a young man of about twenty-four, had the cap of his knee shot off
at Baton Rouge. Ever since he has been lying on his couch, unable to
stand; and the probability is that he will never stand again. Instead
of going out to the manufactory, Mrs. Badger has each time stopped at
the house to see his mother (who, by the way, kissed me and called me
"Sissie," to my great amusement) and there I have seen this poor young
man. He seems so patient and resigned that it is reall