Beverly, April 5. Two, almost three, weeks of the vacation are gone. It is Saturday night, and after a week of fine spring weather, there is another driving snowstorm, which makes us all anxious, as our good brother Isaac has just sailed from Boston; but perhaps he is at anchor in the Roads; they would not start with the signs of a north-east storm at hand. Bound for Sumatra, to be gone a year, perhaps two. How we shall all miss him! He is one of the really kind-hearted, genial men, who know how to make home and friends happy, just by being what they are; no effort, no show about it, genuine goodness of heart making itself always felt. I have had a week of visiting, also. Curious contrasts one finds, in passing from family to family; each has its own peculiar essence or flavor, its home element, or lack of the same; sometimes its painful peculiarity, which it seems almost dishonorable for a guest to notice, or ever even to think of, afterwards. One thing is plain,--the worldly-prosperous learn with most difficulty the secret of home-rest; whoever loves show has not the true home-love in him. Those are the happiest family circles which are bound together by intangible, spiritual ties, in the midst of care, poverty, and hard work, it may be. Whether rich or poor, a home is not a home unless the roots of love are ever striking deeper through the crust of the earthly and the conventional, into the very realities of being,--not consciously always; seldom, perhaps; the simplicity of loving grows by living simply near nature and God. And I have looked into some pleasant homes during this brief visit. Homes where little children are, are always beautiful to me, for the children’s sake, if for nothing more. Cherub-like or impish, the little folks fascinate me always. If I were a mother, I am afraid I should never want my baby to grow up; and who knows whether the babies that die do not keep the charm of infancy upon them forever? So many little children I have loved have gone home with tiny life-torches just filling some small domestic world with light, a light that could not go out, and which perhaps heaven needs to make it perfect heaven.