MANUSCRIPT: HCL (ARS 8). Ink. Dated: Amherst. May 7th/50.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 46-50; LL 141-145, in part; L (1931) 40-43, in part, with part misplaced on pages 28-29.

Lavinia was still in school at Ipswich. The religious revival was of such proportions that on June 8 the Springfield Republican could report that it was still in progress. Edward Dickinson made confession of his faith and joined the church on 11 August. In the third paragraph ED quotes from Longfellow's "The Rainy Day," a poem to which she alludes no fewer than six times during these early years (see letters no. 54, 69, 74, 88, 98). In the eighth paragraph the quotation is from Longfellow's "Footsteps of Angels."