Ernest made his father very happy to-day by telling him that ,the
last of those wretched debts is paid. I think that he might have told
me that this deliverance was at hand. I did not know but we had years
of these struggles with poverty before us. What with the relief from
this anxiety, my improved state of health, and father's pleasure, I
am in splendid spirits to-day. Ernest, too, seems wonderfully
cheerful, and we both feel that we may now look forward to a quiet
happiness we have never known. With such a husband and such children
as mine, I ought to be the most grateful creature on earth. And I
have dear mother and James besides. I don't quite know what to think
about James' relation to Lucy. He is so brimful running over with
happiness that he is also full of fun and of love, and after all he
may only like her as a cousin.

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.