the heart to journalize tonight, everything seems so sad and strange.
What a year this has been--what bright anticipations, what overwhelming
sorrow!


_May 30_.

I have just returned from a long ramble over the dear old place; first
up to the new house so picturesquely placed upon a hill, and down
through the woods to the cool pine grove and the flower-garden. Here I
found a wilderness of purple and white lilacs, longing, I thought, for
a friendly hand to gather them before they faded; dear little
bright-eyed pansies, and scarlet and crimson flowering shrubs, a
souvenir of travel in England, with sweet-scented violets striped blue
and white, transplanted from Pickie's little garden at Turtle Bay long
years ago.

[Illustration: The Side-Hill House.]

Returning, I again climbed the hill, and unlocked the doors of the new
house; that house built expressly for Aunt Mary's comfort, but which
has never yet been occupied. Every convenience of the architect's art
is to be found in this house, from the immense, airy bedroom, with its
seven windows, intended for Aunt Mary, to _a porte cochère_ to protect
her against the inclemency of the weather upon returning from a drive.
But this house, in the building of which she took so keen an interest,
she was not destined to inhabit, although with that buoyancy of mind
and tenacity to life that characterized her during her long years of
weary illness, she contemplated being carried into it during the early
days of last October, and even ordered fires to be lighted to carry off