
          Botanic Garden. Friday evening
 7 o'clock [in pencil 1846, 47, 1845? JLG]


 My Dear Friend


 Mr. Adams brought me
 your most welcome letter as he came home
 to dinner just now, and I will hastily
 reply to it at once. I have a sudden attack
 of my customary swelled face, caused I suppose
 by some exposure in superintending the transplanting
 some trees, which unfits me for work this evening.


 I cannot express to you how welcome your
 letter was to me, I have heard from 
 none of you since your last from New York
 when Mrs. T. was with you , and I have been
 for some time nearly half crazed with anxiety,
 filled with the idea that Mrs. Torrey must be
 again very sick, and yet wondering that I
 should not be informed of it. They have
 been much occupied at Clermont, I suppose.


 Only two or three days ago I received a 
 bundle from New York which contained Fremont's [John Charles Frémont]
 letter of last September. Had I seen that at
 first I should have saved you some anxiety, and
 myself some reproaches, for I see I have done wrong.
 From your letter I merely inferred, wrongly enough,
 that Fremont did not want his projected trip talked
 about. [Jeffries] Wyman has frequently asked before Fremont's
 return, if he was likely to go again, and if I thought he
 might accompany him. I felt therefore no hesitation
 in speaking to him, telling him it was not to be
        