June.—James writes that he has seen the Prince of Wales in New York. He was up on the roof of the Continental Fire Insurance building, out on the cornice, and looked down on the procession. Afterwards there was a reception for the Prince at the University Law School and James saw him close by. He says he has a very pleasant youthful face. There was a ball given for him one evening in the Academy of Music and there were 3,000 present. The ladies who danced with him will never forget it. They say that he enters into every diversion which is offered to him with the greatest tact and good nature, and when he visited Mount Vernon he showed great reverence for the memory of George Washington. He attended a literary entertainment in Boston, where Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Thoreau, and other Americans of distinction were presented to him. He will always be a favourite in America.
June.—Mrs Annie Granger asked Anna and me to come over to her house and see her baby. We were very eager to go and wanted to hold it and carry it around the room. She was willing but asked us if we had any pins on us anywhere. She said she had the nurse sew the baby’s clothes on every morning so that if she cried she would know whether it was pains or pins. We said we had no pins on us, so we stayed quite a while and held little Miss Hattie to our heart’s content. She is named for her aunt, Hattie Granger. Anna says she thinks Miss Martha Morse will give medals to her and Mary Daggett for being the most meddlesome girls in school, judging from the number of times she has spoken to them to-day. Anna is getting to be a regular punster, although I told her that Blair’s Rhetoric says that punning is not the highest kind of wit. Mr Morse met us coming from school in the rain and said it would not hurt us as we were neither sugar nor salt. Anna said, “No, but we are ‘lasses.” Grandmother has been giving us sulphur and molasses for the purification of the blood and we have to take it three mornings and then skip three mornings. This morning Anna commenced going through some sort of gymnastics and Grandmother asked her what she was doing, and she said it was her first morning to skip.
Abbie Clark had a large tea-party this afternoon and evening—Seminary girls and a few Academy boys. We had a fine supper and then played games. Abbie gave us one which is a test of memory and we tried to learn it from her but she was the only one who could complete it. I can write it down, but not say it:
A good fat hen.
Two ducks and a good fat hen.
Three plump partridges, two ducks and a good fat hen.
Four squaking wild geese, three plump partridges, etc.
Five hundred Limerick oysters.
Six pairs of Don Alfonso’s tweezers.
Seven hundred rank and file Macedonian horsemen drawn up in line of battle.
Eight cages of heliogabalus sparrow kites.
Nine sympathetical, epithetical, categorical propositions.
Ten tentapherical tubes.
Eleven flat bottom fly boats sailing between Madagascar and Mount Palermo.
Twelve European dancing masters, sent to teach the Egyptian mummies how to dance, against Hercules’ wedding day.
Abbie says it was easier to learn than the multiplication table. They wanted some of us to recite and Abbie Clark gave us Lowell’s poem, “John P. Robinson, he, says the world’ll go right if he only says Gee!” I gave another of Lowell’s poems, “The Courtin’.” Julia Phelps had her guitar with her by request and played and sang for us very sweetly. Fred Harrington went home with her and Theodore Barnum with me.
Sunday.—Frankie Richardson asked me to go with her to teach a class in the colored Sunday School on Chapel Street this afternoon. I asked Grandmother if I could go and she said she never noticed that I was particularly interested in the colored race and she said she thought I only wanted an excuse to get out for a walk Sunday afternoon. However, she said I could go just this once. When we got up as far as the Academy, Mr Noah T. Clarke’s brother, who is one of the teachers, came out and Frank said he led the singing at the Sunday School and she said she would give me an introduction to him, so he walked up with us and home again. Grandmother said that when she saw him opening the gate for me, she understood my zeal in missionary work. “The dear little lady,” as we often call her, has always been noted for her keen discernment and wonderful sagacity and loses none of it as she advances in years. Some one asked Anna the other day if her Grandmother retained all her faculties and Anna said, “yes, indeed, to an alarming degree.” Grandmother knows that we think she is a perfect angel even if she does seem rather strict sometimes. Whether we are 7 or 17 we are children to her just the same, and the Bible says, “Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.” We are glad that we never will seem old to her. I had the same company home from church in the evening. His home is in Naples.
Monday.—This morning the cook went to early mass and Anna told Grandmother she would bake the pancakes for breakfast if she would let her put on gloves. She would not let her, so Hannah baked the cakes. I was invited to Mary Paul’s to supper to-night and drank the first cup of tea I ever drank in my life. I had a very nice time and Johnnie Paul came home with me.
Imogen Power and I went down together Friday afternoon to buy me a Meteorology. We are studying that and Watts on the Mind, instead of Philosophy.
Tuesday.—I went with Fanny Gaylord to see Mrs Callister at the hotel to-night. She is so interested in all that we tell her, just like “one of the girls.”
I was laughing to-day when I came in from the street and Grandmother asked me what amused me so. I told her that I met Mr and Mrs Putnam on the street and she looked so immense and he so minute I couldn’t help laughing at the contrast. Grandmother said that size was not everything, and then she quoted Cowper’s verse:
“Were I so tall to reach the skies or grasp the ocean in a span,
“I must be measured by my soul, the mind is the stature of the man.”
I don’t believe that helps Mr Putnam out.
Friday.—We went to Monthly Concert of prayer for Foreign Missions this evening. I told Grandmother that I thought it was not very interesting. Judge Taylor read the Missionary Herald about the Madagascans and the Senegambians and the Terra del Fuejans and then Deacon Tyler prayed and they sang “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains ” and took up a collection and went home. She said she was afraid I did not listen attentively. I don’t think I did strain every nerve. I believe Grandmother will give her last cent to Missions if the Boards get into worse straits than they are now.
In Latin class to-day Anna translated the phrase Deo Volente “with violence,” and Mr Tyler, who always enjoys, a joke, laughed so, we thought he would fall out of his chair. He evidently thought it was the best one he had heard lately.
