26th.--I took a row this morning with Theodore a couple of miles along the lake, to a point where we went ashore and lounged away an hour in the sunshine, which is still very comfortable. Poor Theodore seems troubled about many things. For one, he is troubled about me: he is actually more anxious about my future than I myself; he thinks better of me than I do of myself; he is so deucedly conscientious, so scrupulous, so averse to giving offence or to _brusquer_ any situation before it has played itself out, that he shrinks from betraying his apprehensions or asking direct questions. But I know that he would like very much to extract from me some intimation that there is something under the sun I should like to do. I catch myself in the act of taking--heaven forgive me!--a half-malignant joy in confounding his expectations--leading his generous sympathies off the scent by giving him momentary glimpses of my latent wickedness. But in Theodore I have so firm a friend that I shall have a considerable job if I ever find it needful to make him change his mind about me. He admires me--that's absolute; he takes my low moral tone for an eccentricity of genius, and it only imparts an extra flavor--a _haut goût_--to the charm of my intercourse. Nevertheless, I can see that he is disappointed. I have even less to show, after all these years, than he had hoped. Heaven help us! little enough it must strike him as being. What a contradiction there is in our being friends at all! I believe we shall end with hating each other. It's all very well now--our agreeing to differ, for we haven't opposed interests. But if we should _really_ clash, the situation would be warm! I wonder, as it is, that Theodore keeps his patience with me. His education since we parted should tend logically to make him despise me. He has studied, thought, suffered, loved--loved those very plain sisters and nieces. Poor me! how should I be virtuous? I have no sisters, plain or pretty!--nothing to love, work for, live for. My dear Theodore, if you are going one of these days to despise me and drop me--in the name of comfort, come to the point at once, and make an end of our state of tension. He is troubled, too, about Mr. Sloane. His attitude toward the _bonhomme_ quite passes my comprehension. It's the queerest jumble of contraries. He penetrates him, disapproves of him--yet respects and admires him. It all comes of the poor boy's shrinking New England conscience. He's afraid to give his perceptions a fair chance, lest, forsooth, they should look over his neighbor's wall. He'll not understand that he may as well sacrifice the old reprobate for a lamb as for a sheep. His view of the gentleman, therefore, is a perfect tissue of cobwebs--a jumble of half-way sorrows, and wire-drawn charities, and hair-breadth 'scapes from utter damnation, and sudden platitudes of generosity--fit, all of it, to make an angel curse!