Well!—let’s draw a long breath. Mother dear, we are curiously pursued by disaster, lately.

You remember Rosa snatched Clara from a flaming crib just a week ago to-day. Well, a couple of hours ago Julia snatched the sleeping Jean from another flaming crib!—this time not in our bedroom but in the nursery. The bedclothes, the lace canopy, & even the pillow were blazing, at the time, & the poor little chap got a slight burn on the cheek, & some of the hair was singed from the top of her head.

A spark had flown through the fire-screen while Julia was absent in Susie’s room making up a bed. She happened to step into the nursery, & the first thing she saw was the rising gust of flame. She snatched Jean out & screamed. I heard her from the library & flew up there—found the crib a bed of flames, & the floor littered with flaming remnants of the canopy. Rosa arrived right at my heels, & she & I flung the bedding out of the window & stamped out the fire on the floor with our feet. We got our hands burned, of course; & I greatly wonder that Rosa’s clothing escaped, for the blazes on the floor were thing thick a & lively. We have ordered better screens from New York, now.

We had another fright about Bay, last night. T She fell pretty sick & we snaked the doctor out here in a hurry. He said she was threatened with pneumonia. But we tended her & dosed her carefully during the night, & now she is flourishing again.

We are prodigiously glad Clara Spaulding is here.

With great love to you all.