I laid down my pen. I perceive my father watches me very narrowly. 'My child,' he said, 'you are shaking with cold,' (not with 'cold,' I could have answered;) 'these confounded stoves,' he added, 'keep one in an alternate ague and fever; come, waltz round the room with your sister, and get into a glow.' So, singing our own music, we waltzed till we were out of breath; and Alice has seated herself at picquet with my father, who has a run of luck, 'point! seizieme! and capote!' which puts him into high good humor--and I may write unmarked, and let my thoughts, unbridled, fly off after Carl. He was to write me once more before his embarkation, but I can not get the letter till we return, and I have not the poor consolation of looking over the list of the steamer's passengers and seeing the strange names of those who would seem to me happy enough to be in the same ship with him--and yet, what care they for that! Poor fellow! he will be but sorry company, I know. I find support in the faith that I am doing my duty. He could not see it in that light, and had neither comfort for himself nor sympathy for me. I almost wish now, when I think of him in his desolation, that I could receive the worldly philosophy my old nurse offered me when, as Carl drove away, she came into my room and found me crying bitterly. She hushed me tenderly as she was used to do when I was a child; and when I said, 'Hannah, it is for him, not for myself, I feel'--'Oh! that's nothing but a nonsense, child,' she said, 'men an't that way; they go about among folks and get rid of feelings; it's women that stay at home and keep 'em alive, brooding on 'em!' Will he soon 'get rid' of them? Why should I thus shrink from a consequence I ought to desire? and yet, in my secret soul, I do shrink from it. But perhaps it will be easier as I go on, if it be true that 'Each goodly thing is hardest to begin; But entered in a spacious court, they see Both plain, and pleasant to be walked in.' _Wednesday Morning._--My father happened to cast his eye across the table as I finished my last page, and he saw a tear fall on it. Throwing down his cards he said, 'Come, come, children, it's time to go to bed;' and stooping over me, he kissed me fondly, and murmured: 'Dear, good child, I can not stand it if I see you unhappy.' He shall not see me so; I have risen to-day with this resolution. The rain has been pouring down all night, but at this glorious point of sight, directly under Mount Washington, we are 'equal to either fate,' going on or staying.