HYDE PARK, Tuesday—I got here Sunday morning by the same train as my guest, Miss Charl Ormond Williams. She wanted particularly to see the church and the little chapel that my husband had attended, and to go through the house once more before it is finally turned over to the public. A young French newspaper man, Mr. Matin, had come up too, for the day and lunched with us. So I took them to see the top cottage in which my son, Elliott and his wife, now live, and then they spent some time in the library in the afternoon.

When I went to pick up Miss Williams, I was surprised to hear that Madame Gouin, wife of the President of France, was going through the house, but I was happy to be able to greet her. She is a very charming woman, and I am looking forward to her coming to tea with me today in New York City before she returns to France.

It was a beautiful Sunday and though it was chilly the sun gave us a touch of spring, and I noticed little wild flowers peeping up in the woods as we drove through. Last year Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. planted a great many bulbs, daffodils and narcissi around my husband's little cottage in the woods, and this year they are coming up and blooming bravely. In one sheltered spot the daffodils already are out, just as they are by Miss Thompson's back door.

Yesterday morning Elliott took me out at a quarter before seven with an old friend of ours whose advice we always are anxious to obtain. We looked over the old barns and realized anew that when a farm has not been kept up for a number of years there is bound to be a great deal of work to do when you start out to rehabilitate it. I know nothing about farming, but I evidently am going to learn. We are going to raise all the feed we can and keep our cows, chickens and pigs on a slowly increasing scale!

We are planting a big enough garden this year to give us all the vegetables we need this summer and to let us put away a great deal in our deep freeze for next winter.

Our nice weather held until about eleven o'clock and then it began to get gray. Towards late afternoon yesterday I suddenly looked out to find it snowing hard!

I had to take Fala for a walk but he never really enjoys it in the rain; and the snow, of course, was more like rain than real snow. Most of my day was spent in putting my linen in order and tidying up the closets which is an occupation I find one has to do oneself at least once a year. I wish I had not been obliged to come back to New York this morning. But engagements must be kept.