44 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
I forgot to tell you that Agassiz has had little stoves 
(“second-handed”’) put into the upper chambers of 
the house so that his people can work there, and he 
has everything going on under his own eye while I 
am not in the least disturbed by his scientific estab- 
lishment. If he is only well, I think he will be able to 
accomplish a great deal this winter, but it seems to 
me impossible he should finish all he has marked out 
for himself, in three months, especially as he must 
have so many interruptions. He is obliged to go to 
town to lecture three times a week, and does not get 
back till eleven o’clock the next day. 
I hope you will try to write often, though my let- 
ters will not be a worthy return, for happy as I hope 
to be here, nothing can be more intensely quiet than 
the life, and my walk on the beach with an occasional 
expedition to town, will be the greatest events that 
I shall have to write about. 
TO MISS SARAH G. CARY 
Washington, March 22 [1852] 
I suppose, my dear, now that you are mistress of a 
watch you will stand more in dread of fortune hunters 
than Charles Curtis did, when his grandmother left 
him the scissors. Poor Ida has told you, no doubt, how 
much she took to heart the loss of mine, which was, 
just now, quite a family misfortune, as, when Agassiz 
was out of the way, it was our only guide about time. 
But she was so broken-hearted, poor little soul, that 
I have tried to seem as if I had been wishing all my 
