A beautiful day for January. I went to the Office as usual. The accounts from Mr. Everett’s leave no doubt of the quick termination of his child’s sufferings. Alas! Alas! the vanity of human expectations. Next week he plays in the pageant of State affairs, and his ambition must supply the void of his family happiness. In my mind, a poor exchange.

I was occupied in making up Accounts. Mr. Walsh came in for a short time and after him, W. Spear. He talked of Quincy affairs and represented Kirk’s case in such a manner that I directed a Note which will rouse him.1 His other statements were rather more favorable. Walk but I felt depressed and not quite well. Received a letter from my Mother in answer to mine.2 She is much more calm, and less disposed to think me in a plot. In other respects, her spirits appear good. Livy.

Mr. Everett’s two daughters, Anne and Charlotte dined here and passed most of the day. They were of course somewhat left to themselves at home and appeared glad to be with cheerful faces again. Poor little girls, they are not yet of the age to know grief. I went with my Wife, Louisa and them to see the different rooms in the State house, a wish to see which they expressed, then returned home and passed the remainder of the short afternoon in reading Cicero’s Letters to Lentulus and Voltaire’s sprightly correspondence. In the evening, read Gil Blas to my Wife, after which wrote my Diary and finished by a little of Wilhelm Meister.