386 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
as a most promising young musician. This trio was 
then played in Berlin, — brought forward by these 
older musicians and thought by them a remarkable 
production for so young a man. This was rehearsed 
— ah, such a delightful afternoon. We seemed behind 
the scenes, as it were, while the musicians discussed 
and criticized and analyzed their work. And then 
came songs of Dresel’s; it seemed to us that he must 
be there. 
In the summer of 1904 the record in the diary is inter- 
rupted by Mrs. Agassiz’s illness, and after this she was 
never again able to resume the ordinary course of her life. 
Although she was not constantly confined to her room or 
even to the house, her days were substantially those of 
an invalid. “The record for every day is much the same,” 
she writes in her diary on January 21, 1905. “The variety 
comes from flowers sent in by friends — the visits of dear 
people who come to see me and brighten up my imprison- 
ment — many pleasant little incidents.” Not the least of 
these “pleasant incidents” were the visits of children, in 
whom her joy remained unabated, and who flickered like 
little flashes of sunshine across the gray hours of her in- 
validism. It was about this time that she stationed a large 
woolly lamb of many charms in her window to delight the 
eyes of a neighbor’s baby, it being understood that when 
he was able to call upon her, walking alone, he was to 
become its proud possessor. “The dearest children from 
Hamilton,” the note in her diary for January 18, 1905, 
reads. “I had some paint-boxes for them made up in the 
form of little handbags and containing everything that 
juvenile artists could need. They were so pleased, and they 
