I have already written to you once or twice to-day, & so I am not going to write you now—but I can’t resist the temptation to simply say Good-night, & that I love you, darling—because I do love you, Livy—you know I do—you know it perfectly well you little rascal. Just back from Rev. Mr. Trumbull’s—nobody was there but Twichell & Gov. Hawley & me—Post man2explanatory note was obliged to be absent. We have had a y royal time. I have laughed till I feel all tired out. You never heard so many stories told in one evening. There was only one drawback. Mrs. Trumbull kept her little cheer childrenⒶemendation present all the evening, & of course they were fidgetty (the youngest was, at lest leastⒶemendation, & kept everybody uneasy for fear it would break its neck climbingⒶemendation around.3explanatory note written upside down in top margin: Whose Livy? Livy?—Livy! Now I did say to myself, five or six times, during the evening, “I can’t keep a diary, & yet I’ll want to run a paragraph into an article, some day, about the abomination inappropriateness & general disagreeableness of mixing infants into grown people’s entertainments, & I shall want it to read vividly & fresh, & so of course it must be written now, while it is hot, & laid away for use—& so I’ll inflict is itⒶemendation all on poor Livy as soon as ever I get home, & set it forth in all its malignity & its virulence, & ask her to s lay that page by somewhere so that I can call for it when I want it—written upside down in top margin: What a darling it is! & so, by making Livy my diary, I can secure two valuable birds with one stone, viz., I can write the things necessary without its being irksome, because they will be written for the dearest little body in the universe; & 2d, I shall have a diary who will always know where to put her hand on the document entrusted to her, which is a thing I never could do, &c, &c, &c,”—in margin: Livy, Livy, Livy.

But now the spirit of it is all gone—& I feel only kindnesslinessⒶemendation toward the pleasant mother & charity toward the young blockheadsⒶemendation that were a nuisance without knowing it—& so there is nothing for the diary, Livy dear. in top margin: Livy, I love you. But on the contrary I have said just exactly enough to entitle me to a scolding, & I’m morally bound to get it. But the reproof will come from such dear lips that I shall not know it is a reproof, thinking it a blessing. (How’s thim?) {YouⒶemendation know it is wasting time to scold me, Livy, because I love everything you say, rebukes, abuse, & compliments alike.)Ⓐemendation in margin: I love you, Livy.

There are two hundred & twenty-four illustrations in the book, Livy.4explanatory note As I told you, the first edition of the book will be 20,000 copies, & it will take the whole force of the paper mill four weeks to make a good while (maybe longer—the man don’t know, yet,) to make that amount of paper—for the weight of the same is over thirty tons.

Must go to bed—but ain’t sleepy—simply obeying Livy’s orders. God bless my own little darling.