The weather exceedingly warm. I rode to Medford and found Abby alone. She looked a thousand times prettier than I ever saw her before. Indeed, I began to doubt whether I should not call her a beauty. I never had entertained this opinion. With me it is not a sine qua non. And although I never could marry a woman who had not beauty enough to gratify me moderately, I do not prize it to such a degree as to think it of material importance. There are not many prettier women than Abby Brooks and those I should not value the more for that pre-eminence. We talked all day. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks were kind to me and I spent the day and night there. Gorham Brooks was also there.1