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in the notes of Turck which has been puzzling me. Next to see Wood and try to close it up but he had gone to Kingston. This afternoon I packed many jellies and cherry bounce and they are ready to send to her. It has been a most lovely day with a delightful temperature. I hope I may now get into a quiet state and go to work. Calvert expects to come up after Mary goes down and I think he and I will take a ride out to Wilburs in Mink Hollow and see how it looks there with a view to sketching there. I am going to Clermont tomorrow for Sara and hope I may have just such a day as this has been.  

Thursday Sept. 2 1884. We had an early breakfast and I crossed the river by the 7.25 ferry boat and drove up to Clermont through Rhinebeck and along with the old Albany post was arriving there about 11. I met John McEntee returning near Red Hook.  Nannie, Mrs. Livingston, Sara and I walked down across the Livingston Creek and visited an interesting old house, the residence of two elderly ladies, Mrs. Johnson and her sister. It was an old stone house and the dining room was very picturesque with its low ceiling and the beams overhead. They had a quantity of old fashioned furniture and some very fine china which had been in the family (Livingstons) for generations. I did not see the ladies as one of them was not well. We dined at Mrs. Livingstons and came home stopping at the tavern at Clermont to feed the horse. I was told by the Ostler that the house was kept by a widow and that her husband died about a year ago and just before the birth of her child. The barn burned down but her neighbors contributed towards building a new one. It seemed very doleful there. Some puny looking men in the bar room.  The landlady seemed a nice motherly woman and showed us some fancy penmanship by a man who came there yesterday, "a sort of a tramp" she said. The whole ride was through a charming country and the roads were perfection but living in these isolated places seemed to me melancholy unless with a large family and friends and constant occupation. They all have too many trees about their homes. They lack sunlight and are gloomy. The immaculate old house we visited, Mrs. Johnson's was surrounded by trees, and the blinds all closed and smelled damp and musty. We came home by the river road passing the county seats of the Delano's, Astors &c. Our own home seemed best when we reached here about 7. 

Wednesday 3rd  Awoke with a bad feeling in my head and felt disinclined to any effort.  However after breakfast I drove down town and did some errands and went to the bank with the explanation and with hopes to close up the matter. Will have to write to Turck and I hope he will cause no further delay. Then I drove to the West Shore station to inquire if they kept guests there overnight, Miss Reynolds wishing to know but found they need it all for their employees. The afternoon has been very hot. I repacked Marys barrel of china and then came to my room, bathed and dressed and read some of Gertrudes letters to Gussie which Joe left me. They were most interesting to me and brought me almost into her dear presence, for I had a vivid dream of her last night and saw her as with my waking eyes. She seemed to come into a room where there were friends and some strangers. Her smile of welcome to those she knew, her hesitation toward the others, her graceful movements, how real, how like

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