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243 grandfather, great-grand father & even further back, besides those of all my friends, & Sister has lost all of hers; but worse far far worse than all I have not a morsel left of any of the letters Papa wrote to me; no not one; they were so precious that I did not dare to carry even a few around with me; I had them back to when I was a wee little girl six years old, & I used to write to him & he to me. I remember one, My dear Papa, There was an old man named Grundy, who wipped all his boys every Monday so all through the week, unable to speak, they only had rest on a Sunday. Your loving little July Nice 1861 He took the most extraordinary pains during his long illness to write me the kindest & best letters that ever a Father wrote to his daughter & he kept mine as carefully as I did his; I had them all every one, & now? If I had put them in the safe it would have done no good either for it was burned with the Newberry block; the silver met the same fate in a bank on the South side, & some of it was very pretty.

244 The tea pot from which Mama poured the tea, & the china service beautifully painted which we used on Christmas, the spoons we ate with, & the silver mugs we drank from all are gone. The library too with all Papa's favorite books, that beautiful library in which I expected to spend so many cozy evenings; all my drawings from the beginning & my first water-colors, my monogramme book, & oh misery all my journals that I have taken such pains to write & keep, a record all my ideas since I first began to have any! My twenty five dollies poor wretches each roasted in turn & all my inumerable presents & keepsakes, my beautiful pink bonbonniere with the rest! Mamma lost all her jewelry except her diamond earrings her cachemere shawls, laces, dresses etc. Papa's letters to her; letters from Fenimore Cooper, President Van Buren, Washington Irving & Aaron Burr, (written to Grand Father Clapp,) & quantities of others besides. But what is the use of trying to write about it, I have begun this over & over again & I never can go beyond the first few lines.