My dear M. A.: I will now reply to yours, received a few days ago. Yes, I hope our wedding day will be bright and sunny, and that sunshine and affection may be with us as we journey together. I have never seen a mountain, and if I appear green to your people when we reach Connecticut, you must excuse me. I am feeling somewhat depressed this evening, for my sister Minerva and I have been over to Solomon's Creek today, visiting our old home on the farm. The enclosed is a picture of our old home, gotten up of late, but it represents us children as we were years ago when we were all at home. Now mother and James are gone to their long home; father is married again; the farm is sold, but still it seems like home. In imagination we were children again; Mahala, Minerva and I. We were romping in the pastures, woods and fields; climbing pear trees, gathering grapes, currants and cherries; and I told Minerva that I could almost hear Jeff and the other boys laughing at us when the naughty buck sheep chased us onto the haystack, our only safe retreat. The old maple trees, from which we made sugar, are there and many of the other trees, old fences and the like look natural. We talked of how our brothers used to fit us out with hooks and bait to go fishing in the creek, where our anticipation far exceeded our realization; that is, as far as fish were concerned, but really, we did sometimes get a bite. [Illustration: PRICKETT HOME. FATHER AND MOTHER, JEFFERSON, JAMES, WILLIAM AND GEORGE, MINERVA, MARY AND MAHALA.] We talked of how father always brought the minister home to dinner Sunday, and how mother had to fly around waiting on them. All these old times seem to come back to us in a sort of day dream, as this evening Minerva, Cash and I are in their beautiful home here in Goshen. You and I will soon be in ours in Oak Park. I know we shall enjoy ourselves in the home which you are building for us, which we went out to see. I wish I might talk with you instead of writing. Shall anxiously await your reply. Good-night, Your Mary. OURSELVES We are strange beings; our journey through life is a wonderful career. Through unfolding years of childhood, later literary pursuits and life experience, we hasten forward, aspiring to reach our day-dream fancies. When about forty we seem to rest, reflect and soliloquize: "Who am I; what am I; where from; where bound; why do I enjoy, and why do I weep? How all these unseen emotions if my feelings are not controlled by an invisible person who knows, thinks and dictates?" Reason and science teach that we are complex beings, living on the outside of a world which holds us from falling off by a force called gravity.