March 14-20
Go to Grace Church [and] hear Mr. Boyden....Lizzie Dee stays Sunday and Monday night with us. We have
such nice times looking over old Grandfather Douglas's letters and papers, some of them nearly a hundred years
old. Some of the almanacs are as old as 1760. Think a number of the letters are from my great uncle Charles
Meriwether while attending lectures at the University in Edinburgh, Scotland, others to and from his daughter,
Margaret Douglas, several from a Scotch cousin who writes badly and spells worse and some from a great
many kins folk and friends which are grim specimens of the epistolary art. I have a letter from brother Peter.
Hear they have a measles panic at home. The overseer has it so suppose it will spread. Dread to think of it but
will try to bear in mind we are all in the hands of a true and just Providence and whatever he decrees must be
right for he wishes all things well. At Uncle Bob's on Tuesday. Real Spring weather. The birds are singing
merrily and the flowers blooming out never remembering that one swallow does not make a summer and that
these bright spring days may soon be followed by a killing frost. But enough of this cackling. We should make
the most of the sunny hours and recollect "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Go Friday evening to the
Creek with Miss Vallant, Lizzie Dee and Sue. We are introduced to Henry's wife [Sarah Robinson Clegg
Lewis]. She is quite a pretty looking girl. Seems much in love with Henry. The next evening in spite of rain we
get back to Castalia escorted by Jimmy and Nicky [Lewis]. A letter from B. Bankhead. She is anxious for us to
pay her a visit; report says she is soon to be married. A letter from my friend Sally W. She did not write in good
spirits. Also one from Jimmy L; he seems to be hard at work.