MANUSCRIPT: AC. Pencil.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 277; LL 288-289; L (1931) 252-253; Poems (1955) 1104.

This autograph fair draft never left ED's desk, but ED sent a variant duplicate of it to the Norcross cousins, evidently to remind them that they had not recently written to her. The cousins gave Mrs. Todd a transcript of the actual letter they received, wherein ED had made three substitutions in the poem. For wise distinction she wrote sage decision (line 5); for sagest (line 7) she wrote only.