Your letter has been here for several days, but I have not been very well. Now I'm all-better, and the answer goes to you.
First of all, you may indeed have a small interest in Father. This is how much you tempt me with your description of your Mother. Will you give her my love? Mother must be a very precious person. Mine I can hardly remember. But I know she was sweet and good and beautiful. It doesn't seem possible that anyone's mother could be anything else. My Mother was very young when she died, and although the lack of her is sometimes very hard to bear, I am grateful always that her eyes closed on the sight of me, sturdy, laughing, sound! Not as I am now, a bit of human wreckage. I wonder if she knows? There are moments before dawn when I seem to feel her lean over me, and her tears are on my face. But I know that God is merciful, and because of this I think the Dear Dead may not see us. Else, how were it Heaven?
Is it very hard to be Way-Past-Thirty? I am twenty-three—a great old age, if one stops to consider it.
Of course I have "Gentlemen Guests"! I am not too old for that! There's Father, every day; and occasionally Sammy Simpson. Then there is Peter, who lives next door. He would be flattered at your interest. Peter is seven, and the proud possessor of a place where teeth once were. I regret to state that he employs this aperture for an immortal, if not conventional purpose. "It is quite easy," he once earnestly confided to me, "once you get the nick of it!" Peter, his mother, and his baby sister, are away on a visit, and I miss my little friend.
I suppose my doctor comes under the category of Male Visitor. He is sixty, very crusty, but human and dear. There's another Medical Person, too. But he doesn't count.
Good-by for a little, Merlin,
Yours,
The Princess
New York City
July 29th
Your Royal Delightfulness:
I am so sorry you've not been well. I can't bear to think that you should suffer pain. What plucky creatures women are! I wonder that they are created from the same clay as great, blundering, hulks of masculinity!
When my letter remained so long unanswered, I began to fear that it had never experienced the joy of coming to you. I began to worry lest I had offended and alienated you. Indeed, Princess, I began to think all manner of dreadful things! This must never happen again, for I am sure I have a brand-new crop of grey hair! Mind now!