I performed all my exercises tolerably well today with the exception 131of my Voyages, which I had no time to read a part of. I received a letter from Abby in low spirits. My method of writing has at last affected her so much that I find it necessary to change it and this day wrote laughable things. But I am afraid she will grow suspicious of my quizzing her. She is a little too fearful of me, but in time that will wear off. I am now so involved in her fate that my own will materially depend upon it. I trust to a directing Providence.

I read Tacitus after it, and in the evening after a ride I was dull in the parlor as the ladies only hummed songs.