FEB. 14.-Father has not been so well of late. It seems as if he kept up until he was relieved about those debts, and then sunk down. I read to him a good deal, and so does mother, but his mind is still dark, and he looks forward to the hour of death with painful misgivings. He is getting a little childish about my leaving him, and clings to me exactly as if I were his own child. Martha spends a good deal of time with him, and fusses over him in a way that I wonder she does not see is annoying to him. He wants to be read to, to hear a hymn sung or a verse repeated, and to be left otherwise in perfect quiet. But she is continually pulling out and shaking up his pillows, bathing his head in hot vinegar and soaking his feet. It looks so odd to see her in one of the elegant silk dresses old Mr. Underhill makes her wear, with her sleeves rolled up, the skirt hid away under a large apron, rubbing away at poor father till it seems as if his tired soul would fly out of him. FEB. 20.-Father grows weaker every day. Ernest has sent for his other children, John and Helen. Martha is no longer able to come here; her husband is very sick with a fever, and cannot be left alone. No doubt he enjoys her bustling way of nursing, and likes to have his pillows pushed from under him every five minutes. I am afraid I feel glad that she is kept away, and that I have father all to myself. Ernest never was so fond of me as he is now. I don't know what to make of it. FEB 22.-John and his wife and Helen have come. They stay at Martha's, where there is plenty of room. John's wife is a little soft dumpling thing, and looks up to him as a mouse would up at a steeple. He strikes me as a very selfish man. He steers straight for the best seat, leaving her standing, if need be, accepts her humble attentions with the air of one collecting his just debt and is continually snubbing and setting her right. Yet in some things he is very like Ernest, and perhaps a wife destitute of self-assertion and without much individuality would have spoiled him as Harriet has spoiled John. For I think it must be partly her fault that he dares to be so egotistical. Helen, is the dearest, prettiest creature I ever saw. Oh, why would James take a fancy to Lucy! I feel the new delight of having a sister to love and to admire. And she will love me in time; I feel sure of it. MARCH 1.-Father is very feeble and in great mental distress. He gropes about in the dark, and shudders at the approach of death. We can do nothing but pray for him. And the cloud will be lifted when he leaves this world, if not before. For I know he is a good, yes, a saintly man, dear to and dear to Christ.