I wrote yesterday, & I surely did not expect to write again today—but Livy is taking a nap & I have an hour to myself. She Ⓐemendation is wise. We are going out to dinner, & it’s a fearful bore, & she is getting up strength for the occasion, through sleep. I have been outraging her feelings again. She is trying to cure me of making “dreadful” speeches as she calls them. In the middle of winter when I was here, we had a “run” on the hot house for a day or m Ⓐemendation two—which is to say, an unusual lot of people died & their friends came to get roses & things to decorate the coffins with, & at the end of a week there was hardly a dozen flowers of any kind left. Charley & I made a good many jokes about it, & thus horrified. But a while ago I came in with a first-rate air of dejection on, & heaved a vast sigh. It trapped Livy into a burst of anxious solicitude, & she wanted to know what the matter was. I said, “I have been in the conservatory, & there is a perfect world of flowers in bloom—& we haven’t a confounded corpse!” I guess Orion will appreciate that. I don’t like to fool Livy this way, & don’t do it often, but sometimes th Ⓐemendation her simplicity is so tempting I can’t resist the inclination. I wish you could see that girl—the first time I ever saw her I said she was the most beautiful creature in the world, & I haven’t altered my opinion yet. I take as much pride in her brains as I do in her beauty, & as much pride in her happy & equable disposition as I do in her brains.

Haven’t got anything to write about, so I will enclose one of Livy’s letters—don’t read it to anybody but the family & Margaret. 2explanatory note—but M. is one of the family, I suppose. Livy is a sensible girl, & don’t go into any hysterics in her letters—but I do when I write her. Her letter will help you to know her.