SALLIE.
P.S. Here is a picture of Allegra, taken by Mr. Witherspoon. Isn't she a love? Her present clothes do not enhance her beauty, but in the course of a few weeks she will move into a pink smocked frock.
Wednesday, June 24, 10 A.M. MRS. JERVIS PENDLETON.
Madam:
Your letter is at hand, stating that you cannot visit me on Friday per promise, because your husband has business that keeps him in town. What clishmaclaver is this! Has it come to such a pass that you can't leave him for two days?
I did not let 113 babies interfere with my visit to you, and I see no reason why you should let one husband interfere with your visit to me. I shall meet the Berkshire express on Friday as agreed. S. McBRIDE.
June 30. My dear Judy:
That was a very flying visit you paid us; but for all small favors we are grateful. I am awfully pleased that you were so delighted with the way things are going, and I can't wait for Jervis and the architect to get up here and really begin a fundamental ripping-up.
You know, I had the queerest feeling all the time that you were here. I can't make it seem true that you, my dear, wonderful Judy, were actually brought up in this institution, and know from the bitter inside what these little tots need. Sometimes the tragedy of your childhood fills me with an anger that makes me want to roll up my sleeves and fight the whole world and force it into making itself over into a place more fit for children to live in. That Scotch-Irish ancestry of mine seems to have deposited a tremendous amount of FIGHT in my character.
If you had started me with a modern asylum, equipped with nice, clean, hygienic cottages and everything in running order, I couldn't have stood the monotony of its perfect clockwork. It's the sight of so many things crying to be done that makes it possible for me to stay. Sometimes, I must confess, I wake up in the morning and listen to these institution noises, and sniff this institution air, and long for the happy, carefree life that by rights is mine.