JANUARY 3. Bright and warm. John and I walk to Hermitage Hill. Heat oppressive. For the last two days I have sat in my summer house and read. From Hermitage Hill, John for the first time sees the prospect to the west that I had cut last winter, and also the dreadful havoc of the storm with the trees last summer.

JANUARY 4. It rains miserably. I write letters, paying my bills for the year. I fancy my Christmas gifts are now all in.

JANUARY 5. Cold and snow. Bitter, black winter, and deep despondency.

JANUARY 6. I suffer with a cold. In the evening "Twelfth Night"—we have whist and punch. I write to Crocker.

JANUARY 13. Last night they came for whist. Joseph and John do not like the cramped kitchen. I consented to build a fire in the Hermitage. The thermometer was 28°, and it took some time to get it warm; the radiance of the fire was pleasant.

I proposed that instead of having, on next Saturday, a double punch, we have only one and take the other now. This was warmly approved. Ludwig had some lemons in his pocket, and brewed. We drank and played and-went home at nine o'clock. To-day I walk to Hermitage Hill alone. A thick

snow partly covers the ground. In the dense woods hounds bay, and suddenly across my path a scared fox flies, soon followed by the baying hounds. There seemed to be no hunter. I fancy the dogs were hunting on their own account. Further on three partridges ran.

No

On the way home I join a yokel of the hills who grubs roots on some of our land. He tells of a neighbor, aged twenty-two, married this morning at six o'clock. All the neighbors are bidden to the feast at the groom's house at noon; then all meet at the bride's house for supper; after that, dancing until morning. The people are Catholic; my yokel says there will be great store of cider and wines and beer-abundance of good cheer. doubt more real happiness than at the VanderbiltMarlborough wedding. I am just reading how John Churchill, the founder of the name-time William and Mary and Anne-was a man of extraordinary personal beauty and alluring attractiveness. Lady Castlemain, one of the mistresses of Charles II, was enamoured of him. In the memoirs of the Comte de Grammont are many interesting details concerning him. His wife Sarah was very intimate with Queen Anne, and aided in every way her husband's ambitions. Churchill was a man of the highest capacity, but deficient in some moral qualities.

It is pleasant to see the brother who lives on the plain toward Bolivar-Koecherer, once the baker, now happily retired, handsome, rosy, plump, in youth a soldier during the great war. is well called the "Soldiers' Home." danger of exhaustion from work.

The place There is no

I

JANUARY 15. There is fear of an ice famine, for until now there has been no frost hard enough. have had a restless, idle day, full of longing to be away, yet unable to endure the town. I would be glad to go to California; it has grown a necessity, this annual pilgrimage. Yale writes a dolorous letter. The great Illinois Steel Co., whose factor he is, groans under the complication, and, despite its great wealth, shudders like a pauper. The advance agent of prosperity, as the politicians said of McKinley before election, has not brought the promised healing on his wings.

I go to hear Joseph and Levi, on violin and organ, at the school-house to-night. Below, in the barroom, the mumbling voices of the tipplers, among which, like the unending drone of a bagpipe, is heard forever Lockwood's voice.

"Fond fool! six feet shall serve for all thy store, And he that cares for most shall find no more.' HALL'S SATIRES.

FEBRUARY 6. All day an icy rain and water everywhere; the frozen earth sheds all at dark. The ice breaks in the river, which is very high. At eight o'clock Obed died, after a long, dreadful sickness. I am glad the sufferer is at rest.

It is Saturday, and I have a goose roasted. Even when we were at the table with merriment, death came to our friend.

We sit before the fire and play whist. At midnight we pick our way through the black storm over the icy road.

FEBRUARY 7. Very dark. The clouds drizzlingly lie upon the earth, obscuring the distant objects. I pay the penalty of excess last night by heaviness to-day; I have moralische Katzenjammer. Ludwig comes yawning in, and shortly goes away; later, John. We read and bask before the fire-a warmth more steady than the tropics, the burning wood crackling softly. Frau Dishinger's hens, with depressed tails, prowl along the fence, sadly pecking at the grass. The draggled cocks are too dull to crow, and neglect their harems.

The wheat fields, stripped of snow, are green like spring.

FEBRUARY 8. In the morning all is white with soft snow; every twig is alabaster. Obed is buried

in the afternoon, the mourners and coffin on sleds over the half-frozen ground. I do not go any more to the Zoar funerals. My sensibilities are tried by the uncouth disrespect-apparently only, not real. Not a word is said; some smothered sobs, some tears. The coffin is opened, and the rude crowd, with covered heads, push up and stare at the awful, solemn face. In other countries how different! I do not object to the simplicity. I would have near my clay at such a time, however, only those dear to me in life. Death may claim a privacy as well as life. All come in the evening, and we play whist.

FEBRUARY 10. The band plays, and we have to hunt for Jacob to make a hand at whist. We brew a punch from the Large whisky sent from the Duquesne Club of Pittsburg by Colonel S. Only a gallon came; to be sure, it was a demijohn, but very small.

FEBRUARY 11. To-morrow I go to Cleveland, and do not purpose to return before April, as it is intended to leave soon for California with General Caldwell. A letter yesterday from Mrs. H., inclosing one from Frewen about the old book of devotions written by his ancestor, the sometime Archbishop of York. Mrs. H. says Ralph will go to California with us. I am glad.