Of course, the dinner. How could you think of anything else! Invite some of the professors from the University for her, and have the rest of the company of young society people, so that Eleanor and Margaret can enjoy it too.
Oh, my dear, I would like to write a long, long letter about this, but I am in such confusion and hurry! Mr. Bennett has been ordered to Wiesbaden for the winter, and we sail in a week. I wish I could be in Baltimore to help you, but it is impossible, of course. I count on your writing me all your plans, and just how Helen appears, and whether it is all as dreadful as you now fear. Address to the Langham Hotel until November 25th, after that, care Brown, Shipley, as usual. Good-by. I have a thousand things to tell you of, but must put them off until I reach London and have a moment to myself.
As ever,
Devotedly yours,
A. B.
P.S. Don’t look too much on the dark side of things. I knew a Philadelphia girl once—the niece of old Colonel Devereaux you know—and she was rather pretty and quite good form, though a college girl. I think, however, she had been but one year to college.
Mrs. Olmsted Morrison to Mrs. Franklin Bennett, the Langham Hotel, London, W. C.
Baltimore, November 15th.
Dearest Alma: Your note, which was so welcome and which came so long ago, would have had an earlier answer had I not been a little sick, and so busy and worried that I have not had time or heart to write even to you. So you can imagine in what a state I am.
The girls came back to town shortly after I last wrote you, and we held a sort of family council about Helen. The dear girls were charming, and Eleanor bore it very bravely. She says she will give Helen hints about her hair, and will implore her not to wear spectacles, but rimless eye-glasses.
We are very much worried about her gowns. Of course her own taste is not to be depended upon, and I hardly fancy her income would justify her in leaving her toilette entirely with a grande couturière, even if she would dream of doing such a thing, which I very much doubt. Her father, you know, left the bulk of his fortune to found a library in Westchester. He always said he never intended to leave Helen enough to tempt anyone to marry her for her money. Poor Henry—what a strange, misguided man! But then, of course, he could not foresee that his daughter would be an ugly duckling, and strong-minded and college-bred, and all that. Oh, yes, of course he must have known about the college. But at any rate, man-like, he did not realize how unattractive Helen would be.