The morning was clear and cold. We determined to go to Medford, according to promise while this fair weather lasted. Accordingly we started after breakfast as we did on last Sunday, arriving there just before time to attend Divine Service. I went morning and afternoon and heard Mr. Stetson deliver what I did not doubt were sensible Sermons, if I had been sufficiently fortunate to have been able to have attended to them but I was not. My attention would not turn as I would have it so I was fain to give up the Contest and a judgment. Mr. Brooks was much pleased with the Sermon. The day passed otherwise without any thing worthy of notice. I wasted as much time as I always do.

In the evening as Abby was anxious to make some visits among her Medford acquaintance, her father and I accompanied her to Mr. Stetson’s in the first place, where we saw the Parson in his prime condition and his small Wife. They were as usual, the former a wriggling nervous man of sense, the latter a very quiet unmeaning woman. We soon left there and went to Miss Osgoods, two Maiden ladies, daughters of the old Parson,1 who take after him in manners and in drawl, but appear to be tolerably intelligent from the small opportunity I have of judging of them. We went from there to see Mr. and Mrs. Hall with whom we spent over an hour.2 We thus accomplished an 77evening’s work. This business is a little irksome to me, but it is proper and I consider it one of those fitting sacrifices of the married State which I have made perhaps as much for my own good as the general one. We returned home late in the evening and retired soon afterwards.