[Boston—Thursday, 26 September 1872]
Thursday 26. Still very very warm—and wet. Went down town to make some preliminaries for Mrs Stowe’s first reading in Boston this evening. We talked somewhat during the morning, but she slept during the afternoon. At night however she put on her new dress and made herself look very pretty, but she was nervous, the night was warm and her reading was not altogether successful; people could not hear. She made a spot on the front of her pretty dress too at supper after our return for her obliviousness to all cares of this sort are wonderful and terrible. She takes everything offered to her at table and leaves quantities of bread and what not strewed about and her room is a tangle wherein nothing can be found—in spite of all this her talk is forever interesting and absorbing and her friendship a boon of heaven.
