Dear Mamma:-Today and yesterday have been beautiful days, but how long I can keep on wearing my blue suit remains to be seen. I must next Sunday if I spend it with Anna Sherman Arnold. They have a sort of Japanese padded little jacket that is exactly what you ought to have to wear. I'll see how much they are and get you one for a Xmas present if they aren't very expensive. I'm not sure I could get one on under my blue coat without crushing my clothes too much, but if I could I think I could wear my suit all winter, for the little things look warm. I've seen them both with and without sleeves. I'm glad you have your dress trimmed. I was going to offer to get the trimming and send it on.
I don't think I shall try to send Xmas presents to anybody. There's no place to stop if I begin. I'd just love to do it - as much as usual and more so - but I don't see how I can. Seems as if I must send something to Newman and Reno, but I don't know what - and I haven't any money anyway.
Yesterday was the free day at the new art museum so I went. It is fine and spacious - so well planned. The things show off so much better than before. The Japanese end is all finished in Japanese cedar, not shellaced [sic] or waxed at all apparently, just smooth. There are the white parchment paper screens at the windows, such as they have instead of glass, and all is very attractive. There's a garden with a pond and papyrus, and goldfish, with idols about and beautiful carved balcony rails. The casts and pictures have so much more room, and the vases and prints too. Eva Noyes and I had lunch together.
I went to hear Rabbi Fleischer at the Temple Israel and seems to me it's about the best sermon and service I've heard. He is surely an unusual man. The music was beautiful, the ritual partly in Hebrew or Yiddish but mostly in English. The organ pipes look like trumpets and radiate from a semi-circular window over the pulpit. It was very interesting.
Friday night I went with Mrs. Johnson and a Miss Blood, a Yale graduate study in physiological chemistry who used to be at Mrs. Johson's, to see the Radcliffe dramatics. The play was written by two alumnae and was acted by girls now in college and three or four recent graduates. It was surely good. Their little theatre is very attractive, the kind of auditorium we need in the Student Alumnae Building at Mt. Holyoke, though ours must be bigger.
I think Esther is better but not by any means well.
Fill out your blank "non-graduate 1853." That was the year you were there wasn't it, 1852-53? Give the year of papa's death. I don't know whether they ask for that or not but they used to. Give your name Emeline Mehitabel for that is what it ought to be. I haven't the general catalogue here, only the address-book, which is of no account. And give your address as South Hadley, Mass, rather than Cleveland, for it will be that again by the time the book is out, and that is the one to have recorded anyway. I guess that ought to cover the thing. I filled out mine and sent it in and have forgotten exactly what was asked.
It is supper-time. Love to you.
Abby.