George retains his place with us.

His disposition to gallantry has made us say once or twice that we wanted no more colored cooks around until he should experience a change of heart; but we hanker for them, nevertheless, & your letter makes us want to try the one you mention.

1. Will you give us an idea of her wages, Joe?

2. Is she tidy?—because when a colored cook is untidy she is likely to be intemperate in it.

Now if you don’t mind answering these two questions, Joe, favorably, Livy will tackle the candidate by letter & do the rest of the thing herself.

OVER

   3. Can Harmony recommend her as a good cook? Never mind her morals; is she a good cook?

And there is one question which I would like answered: Is she old enough, or grave enough,—or above all, strong enough & wise enough, to resist George’s fascinations?

You see, George is going to live with his wife again,—unless we get a cook to his taste. I want him to live with her; his wife; it curtails her immoralities, by diminishing her time for them.

I am revising my MS. I did not expect to like it, (the MS) but I do. I have been knocking out early chapters for more than a year, now,—sim not because they had not merit, but merely because they hindered the flow of the narrative; it was a dredging process; day before yesterday my shovel fetched up three more chapters & laid them reeking on the festering shore-pile of their predecessors, & now I think the yarn swims right along, without hitch or halt. I believe it will be a readable book. of travels. I cannot see that it lacks anything but information.

The newspapers say Mr. Francis Gillette has passed away; but as we have received letters from you, & Charley Warner, & Lilly Warner, & Mrs. Perkins since the newspapers said it (I believe,) we are fain to hope it was some one else. of the same name.

You have run about a good deal, Joe, but you have never seen any place that was so divine as the Farm. Why don’t you come here & take a foretaste of heaven?

With love to Harmony & yourself & the seven little ones,