You say that mother may come to-night. I truly hope she will.
But as the heavy fog we had here this morning may have been a rain in
Boston, I write now, to request father to go to Oak Hall, or to some
ready-made linen-store, and buy Mr. Hawthorne two linen sacks, well
made, and good linen. He is a perfect bunch of rags, and he will not
let me make him anything to wear--absolutely will not. But he consents
that something shall be bought. If mother should be delayed beyond
Monday, this can be done; otherwise it cannot.
I am very sorry about the little books; but I do not see any help.
Ticknor & Co. were going to have illustrations drawn for them, and Mr.
Hawthorne thinks they are begun, that money has been expended, and
that it is too late to change the plan. He says, he is bound by his
engagement, and cannot recede; but that if you can change their
purposes independently of him,--if they are willing, he is. Mr. Fields
has not said a word about the Fairy Tales, and I do not know whether
Mr. H. intends to write them now. I never ask him what he is about.
But I know he is not writing seriously this hot weather. God bless
you all,
SOPHIECHEN.
Sunday.
MY DEAR MOTHER,--'This has been a dull "heaven's day" for the
children, who have not been so merry as on a sunny day. I have read to
them, and shown them my drawings of Flaxman's Iliad and Odysse and
Hesiod. I wish you could have seen them the other day, acting Giant
Despair and Mrs. Diffidence.
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