24.
a bathe, then stayed the evening with them, returning to New
York by 11.
  31.  Sunday.  Mr Greatbatch called, bringing a letter from
Boutcher.     He has returned to England.  /            To Gosling�s
by 12.     In-doors till Evening, Mr Hart & Dillon calling,
on their way to Chapins.          I left Waud writing in my room,
and went to Beach Street.       Mrs K on a day�s visit to
Connecticut, and Lotty away at Morrisiana.       Sat talking
with comely Mrs Brook and her pretty little child Louise; the
latter of whom would have me come in, talk to me and make much
of me, trying to sing Jeannete & Jeannot and prattling at a great rate.
Lotty I learnt had gone on a sort of amateur theatricalizing, pic-
nicing visit,   intending but a day at first, came back for clothes,
and returned for devil kens how long. �Had she taken her child?�
quoth I, guessing well what the answer would be. �Oh dear no!�
said Mrs Brook.  �Why I hardly think the child knows its
mother.    Sometimes she don�t see it for nearly a week together,
and when she does, but for a minute or so.     It always cries
to go to Bridget.�          Little Whytal is fond and proud of it.
What a damnable trait is that in a woman, not loving her
own child.     It�s the most horrible thing in Thackeray�s Becky
Sharpe.    /    And then the never-sated desire for the silly admiration
of new faces.        If this girl�s life could be pourtrayed in a
story ! � (I�ll try at it, if ever I do write one.)          There�s a
terrible similitude �twixt the course of mother and daughter,
the same dreadful egotism the mainspring of both characters.  Lotty
was neglected and uncared for in her girl-hood, the woman sought
her own pleasures, trashy or vicious as the case might be; masque-