Yesterday the piano was sent up from Steinway's, where it has been
stored since last fall, and now we have all settled to our different
occupations, and are as methodical in the disposition of our time as
though we were in school.

None of us are very early risers, for mamma, who should naturally set
us a good example, has been too long an invalid to admit of it, and we
girls have become habituated to the luxury of breakfasting in bed, from
residence abroad and in the tropics. Not that we breakfast in bed at
the "Villa Greeley," however; we are much too sociable, and our
dining-room is too attractive, for that. But we gratify our taste for
reasonable hours by assembling around the table at half-past eight.

"Shocking!" I fancy I hear Katie exclaim. "I breakfast _at least_ two
hours earlier. How can you bear to lose so much of the beautiful
morning?"

Don't imagine, dear Katie, that I _sleep_ till half-past eight: you
must know the wakeful temperament of our family too well for that. I
find it, however, very poetic and delightful to listen to the matins of
the robins, thrushes, and wrens, from my pillows; and by merely lifting
my head I have as extended a panorama of swelling hills and emerald
meadows, as though promenading the piazza.

I have been in my day as early a riser as any one--even you, dear
Katie, have not surpassed me in this, respect; for you recollect those
cold winter days when I arose at "five o'clock in the morning," not,
however, to meet Corydon, but to attack the Gradus ad Parnassum of
Clementi by gaslight, in my desire to accomplish eight hours of