Friday, Nov 27, 1885 I went home Wednesday afternoon. It was still storming. Tom met me at the station. It had snowed up there violently for two days and melted rapidly so that the roads were in the worst possible condition. It rained Thursday at intervals so that there has been a continuous storm ever since last Saturday. We had our Thanksgiving dinner alone, my father, Sara and I except that little Girard and Dwightie dined with us. Mary and Girard were invited down to Johns and Jimmy and Charlie had gone out to Flat-bush to their grandmothers. Sara invited Gustavus and Marietta but they did not come. I think we never before sat down to so small a table on Thanksgiving day at our house. I think my father felt sad but I did not more than usual. I have a continuous sad and homesick feeling now and life seems to have lost most of its flavor. Still I feel capable of much happiness under circumstances of freedom from certain cares which I hope will one day cease. Annie Norton came up to call. She and Fred went up on the train with me to spend Thanksgiving with John & Nannie. Sara and I were invited down there and spent the evening with them very pleasantly. Sara had a letter from Janette in which she spoke of a spiritualistic medium who is staying with them. She said Gussie came to her the other evening and spoke to her in a whisper and told her Gertrude and our Mother and Dwight and Maurice and Janey were there and to write to Sara and me to tell us Maurice was happy and that his last days had not affected his happiness as much as we perhaps imagined. Janette has the fullest faith in the genuinness of these communications. Somehow they have little effect upon me and yet I am not prepared to say there may not be more in them than I can account for. I came down this morning which was bright and cold with ice on the pools and have been painting on my picture all afternoon. Miss Durfee came in with a scheme for sending a collection of American pictures to Berlin which I frankly told her I had no interest in. I wrote a note to Booth at the Albemarle telling him I was going to be here over Sunday and hoped he could come and see me. I feel dizzy and badly as I almost always do after coming from home. Attended a french class at Mrs. Scotts in our building, this being the first evening. We intend learning to converse and shall probably have little to do with grammar. I find it very difficult to understand conversation and equally difficult to converse while I read passably well.
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