DEAR ANNIE,--If I could only make you feel the difference in myself coming home through the apple-blooms last night, and going to Boston Wednesday morning, I think you would know that you had not lived in vain, for a few of the beautiful May-day hours. I bring such refreshment from you always! I wonder if you do not feel that something is gone out from you, or are you like the flowers, that find an infinite sweetness in their hearts, replacing constantly what they give away? So much I must say in love and gratitude, and you must pardon it, because it is sincere. I have copied the rhyme note for you. If I did not feel so very “stingy” (it’s the word!) about our Mr. Whittier’s letters, I should give you the original, for I think it belongs to you almost as much as to me. But possession is nine tenths of the law, you know, and I am a real miser about the letters of a friend,--ashamed as I am to own it to one so generous to me as you are.... The “rhyme note” mentioned was a delightful doggerel from Mr. Whittier. AMESBURY, March 25, 1866. Believe me, Lucy Larcom, it gives me real sorrow That I cannot take my carpet-bag, and go to town to-morrow; But I’m “Snow-bound,” and cold on cold, like layers of an onion, Have piled my back, and weighed me down, as with the pack of Bunyan. The north-east wind is damper, and the north-west wind is colder, Or else the matter simply is that I am growing older; And then, I dare not trust a moon seen over one’s left shoulder As I saw this, with slender horn caught in a west hill-pine, As on a Stamboul minaret curves the Arch Impostor’s sign. So I must stay in Amesbury, and let you go your way, And guess what colors greet your eyes, what shapes your steps delay, What pictured forms of heathen love, of god and goddess please you, What idol graven images you bend your wicked knees to. But why should I of evil dream, well knowing at your head goes That flower of Christian womanhood, our dear good Anna Meadows! She’ll be discreet, I’m sure, although, once, in a fit romantic, She flung the Doge’s bridal ring, and married the “Atlantic;” And spite of all appearances, like the woman in the shoe, She’s got so many “Young Folks” now she don’t know what to do. But I must say, I think it strange that thee and Mrs. Spalding, Whose lives with Calvin’s five-barred creed have been so tightly walled in, Should quit your Puritanic homes, and take the pains to go So far, with malice aforethought, to walk in a vain show! Did Emmons hunt for pictures? was Jonathan Edwards peeping Into the chambers of imagery with maids for Tammuz weeping? Ah, well, the times are sadly changed, and I myself am feeling The wicked world my Quaker coat from off my shoulders peeling; God grant that, in the strange new sea of change wherein we swim, We still may keep the good old plank of simple faith in Him!