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lodgings, and find it very difficult to get them.
This change of home, habits, and association is very trying to old persons; the variety seems rather pleasant to the young.
September 16, 1863.
This house is to be sold on the 29th, so we must all find resting-places before that time.
But where?
Room-rent in
Richmond is enormously high.
We may get one very small cottage here for forty dollars per month, but it has the reputation of being unhealthy.
Our connection,
Mr. P., is here looking out for a home, and we may get one together.
It would be delightful to have him and the dear girls with us. No one thinks of boarding; almost all the boarding-house keepers rent out their rooms, and refugees keep house in them as cheaply as they choose.
We have all been scattered.
The
Bishop has obtained good rooms; the other members of the household are temporarily fixed.
We are here with our son, looking for rooms every day; very few are vacant, and they are too high for our means.
We shall probably have to take the little cottage at
Ashland, notwithstanding its reputation-either the cottage or a country-house near
Richmond, about which we are in correspondence with a gentleman.
This plan will be carried out, and work well if the
Lord pleases, and with this assurance we should be satisfied; but still we are restless and anxious.
Our ladies, who have been brought up in the greatest luxury, are working with their hands to assist their families.
The offices given to ladies have been filled long ago, and yet I hear of a number of applicants.
Mr. Memminger says that one vacancy will bring a hundred applications.
Some young ladies plait straw hats for sale; I saw one sold this morning for twenty dollars-and their fair fingers, which had not been accustomed to work for their living, plait on merrily; they can