I did not mention Walter Hellen’s leaving us yesterday morning as he only started for Boston. Today he goes home. I have been pleased with his unassuming manners and amiable disposition, and regret that he is now obliged to leave the family to whom he has much recommended himself.

I returned to town this morning with John Quincy in company who appears all agog with his appointment. Office where I was busy with Accounts and Money—Copying letters and some general commissions. 396This was Quarter day and therefore attended with the usual payments. Returned to Medford. Found that poor old Squire was dead. Quite a pathetic close to a long service of usefulness. Poor fellow. It was time.

Afternoon. Began a new German story and read a little of the Preface to Ovid. Nothing further. Evening, notwithstanding a heavy blow form the southward, we went down to attend a party at Mrs. Dudley Hall’s. The Medford people. It was exceedingly dull and tiresome to me. Home by ten. The relation in which Town people and those of the Country stand to each other is always a stiff one. They have few common topics of conversation and yet the one expect a great deal from the other with little to give in exchange.

Cloudy and with a high Southerly wind but exceedingly warm. I went into town with Mr. Brooks. Time consumed in Office, business—Rents, Money, Athenaeum &ca. I barely read a few lines in the new Number of the North American and did not much like those. How fast time flies in a morning.

Home. Mr. and Mrs. Frothingham dined with us and we had a pleasant time. There has been much conversation about an arrangement for Mr. Brooks this Winter. He has been inclining very much to ask me to sell my House and take the Lease of his, provided that he remain in the House as Winter tenant. He has been much inclined to ask my Wife to go there, and spend the Winter without reference to further measures. There are difficulties in all the arrangements. My intention has been and is, if I can get good accommodations to go to Washington. But if my Wife inclined to accommodate her father, I would consent to her going and I was to go merely to Washington and home again for a month. In the meantime Mr. Brooks hit upon another arrangement with his Sister which suits him in many respects far better. But he remains balancing and undulating like a pendulum. In the mean while I am waiting for information form Washington.1

Evening quietly at home I read a good deal of the criticism upon Ovid and was pleased with it, also German.