I can readily understand that there were those who regarded our talk and our planning simply as so much effervescence. We had harped upon the same old string so long--or at least Alice had--that, not unfrequently, even we smilingly asked ourselves whether it were likely that our day-dreaming would ever be realized. I dimly recall that upon several occasions I went so far as to indulge in amiable sarcasms upon Alice's exuberant mania. I do not remember just what these witticisms were, but I daresay they were bright enough, for I never yet have indulged in repartee without having bestowed much preliminary study and thought upon it. I have mentioned our youngest son, Erasmus; he was born to us while we were members of Plymouth Church, and we gave him that name in consideration of the wishes of our beloved pastor, who was deeply learned in and a profound admirer of the philosophical works of Erasmus the original. Both Alice and I hoped that our son would incline to follow in the footsteps of the mighty genius whose name he bore. But from his very infancy he developed traits widely different from those of the stern philosopher whom we had set up before him as the paragon of human excellence. I have always suspected that little Erasmus inherited his frivolous disposition from his uncle (his mother's brother), Lemuel Fothergill, who at the early age of nineteen ran away from the farm in Maine to travel with a thrashing machine, and who subsequently achieved somewhat of a local reputation as a singer of comic songs in the Barnabee Concert Troupe on the Connecticut river circuit. Erasmus' sense of humor is hampered by no sentiment of reverence. For the last five years he has caused his mother and me much humiliation by his ribald treatment of the subject that is nearest and dearest to our hearts. In fact, we have come to be ashamed of speaking of "the house" in Erasmus' hearing, for that would give the child a chance to indulge in humor at the expense of a matter which he seems to regard as visionary as the merest fairy tale. Now Galileo and Herschel are very different boys; they are making famous progress at the manual training school. Galileo has already invented a churn of exceptional merit, and Herschel is so deft at carpentering that I have determined to let him build the observatory which I am going to have on the roof of the new house one of these days. Galileo and Herschel are unusually proper, steady boys. And our daughters--ah! that reminds me.