Vassar College, Sept. 20, 1866.
My dear dear Mother;
If you could have heard the joyful exclamations which greeted the sight of your letter you would have felt repaid for the labor of writing it when you was so busy. We are very happy here though not very busy as yet. I suppose that recitations will not begin regularly before Monday but yet we have some things to do before in visiting old and new students sewing & general exercise we find enough to do. I have seen Miss Pope two or three times and like her very much. She is about nineteen and quite pretty and lady like. She is a good scholar too I believe. I have seen but little of Cousin Emma's niece. She Is a very quiet girl. I am very glad to hear of the little Miss Pomeroy's safe arrival. I am very glad that you did not invite the Popes to stop over, for I think you are tired enough. It must be very pleasant to have so good a girl. Your storm has travelled eastward I guess, for today it is cold and drizzly. The new students are some of them very pleasant, but I long for the old ones. Miss Stoddard is a very lovely girl. I like very much indeed. I am very sorry that I did not see Mrs. Osborne when she was at our house. Isn't it strange that Gilpatrlck should have been there just before I came home and Mrs. Osborne just after I left. I think she is very pleasant and good, if not prepossessing in her appearance. What a nice visit you must be having with Auntie and little Mary. We knew Willie's habits & feelings & did not any of us suppose that Uncle [Sephas] made any great demands upon his time. I don't think Mrs. Sumner need be troubled for fear you will not miss us enough. I only hope that it will not seem very lonely at home and that you will enjoy the year as much as we shall. They are going to have very hard work in the classical departments for they have two less teachers than last year and fully as many classes. We all miss Miss Gilbert more than we thought we should. I am very glad that you have a good girl again. You will feel the relief from the cares of the kitchen, and I hope find it pleasant. Mrs Town is not here I am very sorry to say. I am provoked too for if appearances are not deceitful she is vastly superior to most of the new teachers in that department. I think it is so strange that none of her friends have heard from Miss Leach for so long. I have not since last March. Miss Mitchel is going to have me take spots on the sun for my observing. Ifwe don't have pleasanter weather than we have had lately there will not be much for me to do. I can't tell yet what I am to study. I suppose that I shall know in the course of the next week. The time has passed very rapidly. I never knew a place where time would glide away as it does here. If all our letters pass as quickly as these two have we shall have reason to be thankful. I was in hopes that you would receive my letter that Saturday morning but hardly expected it. They were all ready to take students at the College when we came & there were over an hundred here. The circulars all send Wednesday Sept. 13, which was one reason for our making the mistake. What do you think[!] Prof. Chancy tried to make the girls from the High School go out to Kalamazoo instead of cominghere & told them that he did not think that I had made any thing in leaving Kal. & going to Vassar. I wonder if he remembered what he said about Kal before I went out there. The Detroit girls are all well & seem quite happy. I hope they will all do well here. I don't want you to send meyour watch. Helen has hers and I am in this room all the time & they have a clock in the other room so I think I shall not want it in the least. When you send the things by express I guess you had better send Helen's fruit knife though I don't believe she needs it but
she wants it I believe. Please send those pictures Miss Gilbert gave me, and that vase we had before. I don't think of any thing else. I must stop now & prepare to go over to the observatory in the rain. Miss Mitchell liked my pictures pretty well but thought, as I knew she would, that they were not good looking enough. All send love to all. Tell Nellie I will write soon. With any amount of love my dear, dear Mother, Good by your own
  Hattie.
[(Writing on the side)I wish Father would write to us]