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the day was dark and rainy and coming from the midst of the family to the loneliness of my room I had ample opportunity to brood over all my sorrows. Yesterday before we went to dinner Lucy called me out and gave me a letter I read from Mrs. Wilkins from Washington in which she tells her that Carrie had just received a telegram from Capt. Porter telling her he would be there about Apl. 1 and they and they are to be married there, against her fathers and mothers wishes. The poor woman was in the deepest distress and it gave me a pang that I hardly dare to acknowledge. [[strikethrough]] ??[[/strikethrough]] Mrs. Wilkins sent me a kind message and says she will certainly see me when she comes to New York. I found here Lucys letter of last week. A letter from Alice and a sad one from Gussie. Also a letter from Mr. Gilliats brother very kind and considerate telling me his brother is engaged which ends what I tried to do for Minnie Coen. I answered his letter and mailed one to Janette which I wrote at home. Wrote a dispairing letter to Lucy.

Friday Mar. 28. 1879. Went and ordered some hickory wood and had a pipe put in the flue for the stove which does not draw well with my Franklin and then went to work painting on my picture and have kept at work on it all day and forwarded it considerably. Booth came in about noon. Told me he had written to Irving about going over and acting in his theatre while he comes to this country and that Stedman had written to Smalley. Mary came in shortly after he went. I have thought a great deal about Gertrude today and I miss her so that at times I do not see how I am to live without her. I think I have got her portrait a good deal like her and shall not do anything more to it but paint another one from it. This evening I called up at Whitelaw Reids and found him in the dining room with his niece and a Miss Phelps and a Miss Clark. They had just finished dinner. He gave me a cigar and we went into his beautiful library where I spent the evening while the young ladies busied themselves about their work, Miss Phelps directing herself to trimming a spring bonnet.

Saturday 29. Came to my studio with an overwhelming feeling of depression this morning and an utter inability to go to my work. Calvert came in after a little and towards noon I went up to the Academy, this being varnishing day. The first thing that caught my eye from the head of the stairs was my picture "Clouds" in the place of honor in the Academy, in the centre of the large south gallery. There was a large gathering of artists, many of them

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