Morning at the Office excepting an hour spent at Mrs. Frothingham’s with Abby. At one I called at Dr. Gorham’s for her in a gig and then drove to Medford. A small family dinner to introduce Miss Dehon. Mr. and Mrs. P. C. Brooks Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Everett, Mr. Sidney Brooks, Miss Dehon, Miss Bartlett, (a cousin staying here),1 and I constituted the company. The afternoon was dull to me. There is much in the habits of a family foreign from your own which must necessarily be of little interest, and when they gather together in such large numbers, those who do not belong are almost thrown out of the circle. Indeed I always like Abby better when not surrounded by her own relations as their habits and mode of life and thinking are so different from those which I have acquired that it is scarcely possible for us to meet upon common ground. Still it is matter of great question to me whether as a family their happiness is not greater with their system than our’s has been with the different one which fell to our share.