Very truly yours,
BEVERLEY SANDS.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN TO BEVERLEY SANDS
Seminole, North Carolina,
July 18.
DEAR SIR:
I met with the melancholy misfortune a few weeks ago of losing my great father. Since his death I have been slowly going over his papers. He left a large mass of them in disorder, for his was too active a mind to pause long enough to put things in order.
In a bundle of notes I have come across a letter to him from Burns & Bruce with the list of ferns in it that they sent him and that had been misplaced. My dear father was a very absent-minded scholar, as is natural. He had penciled a query regarding one of the ferns on the list, and I suppose, while looking up the doubtful point, he had laid the list down to pursue some other idea that suddenly attracted him and then forgot what he had been doing. My father worked over many ideas and moved with perfect ease from one to another, being equally at home with everything great—a mental giant.
I send the list back to you that it may remind you what a trouble and affliction you have been. Do not acknowledge the receipt of it, for I do not wish to hear from you.
CLARA LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN.
BEVERLEY SANDS TO JUDD & JUDD
July 21.