182
  26.  Monday.  To tailor�s for panta-
loons.    Then with Gun and Billington for a walk
to the Central Park, the latter taking the skates
of the former.    A mild day, a great crowd,
an amusing sight, innumerable skaters though
rather slushy ice.   Return to dinner by 3 1/2.
At 7, with Morris to Edwards�.    All the folks
assembled upstairs: first the family, then of
persons I know, Jim Parton, �Fanny,� her
daughters, Mrs Thomson (Mort�s mother) Clifford,
(her son) the Russells, Bonestalls, Willistons, Mrs
Honeywell (Charley�s mother � lives in the house �
a dressmakers � thinks the world of her son) Nichols,
George Edwards, wife and children, pretty Miss
Brown (friend of Eliza) the Pillows and others
whom I don�t identify very clearly.    The perform
ers were of course for the present invisible,
behind the closed folding doors of the front par-
lor.      Heaps of presents covered the table, pushed
away to the further end of the apartment, promi-
nent among which was the punchbowl, the gift of
the girls, Jack, Haney and perhaps Parton to
Mr and Mrs Edwards.   The side shelf-counter
too was littered with them.     Nast had anticipated
me in presenting Papa Edwards with the �Tale of
Two Cities � but mine was the better edition. (I only
brought that and a Rosa Bonheur �Horse Fair: engra-
ving for Mrs E.)         Interchanged cordial greeting