If Queenie sends me some of our daughter's hair I will put it in the locket I have with Wifie's. Would Sophie make a nice second name? It was the name of one of my sisters whom I was said to be most like of the family; but possibly it might make suspicions.
I am very anxious about my darling going to London so often; it must be very bad for you. You may try your next letter upon ordinary paper, unglazed, and do not crowd what you write in ordinary ink into one little space in the middle of the sheet. After the solution has dried if you rub over the letters with an ink eraser it will remove all the glistening and appearance of letters. I wonder they have never opened any of them, but they may do it at any time. It would not hurt me in any way as I do not use it for any other purpose. Unless, indeed, they sent it to a certain person.
Queenie must not be alarmed about stupid rumours in the papers. You know what these liners are, and the Freeman agent in London is singularly stupid and badly informed.
YOUR LOVING HUSBAND.
April 5, 1883.
MY OWN DEAREST WIFIE,—I think it very likely that something will be done by the Government shortly on the arrears question. If this be so, things will undoubtedly quiet down a great deal, and it will give us an opportunity of coming to some arrangement. I do not in the least apprehend that any further steps will be taken against me in any case, though, of course, they would eagerly grasp at the slightest thing in order to try and throw discredit on me.
So far as I can judge, the number of outrages has diminished very materially during the last two or three weeks, and is likely to continue decreasing.
My own Wifie must remember that I was only 12 st. 2 lb. when I came here, as I had fallen away very much after I left her, and that I have got back 5 lb. since, notwithstanding my illness, which left me very thin indeed. Poor little Queenie must be greatly troubled and anxious at all the rumours she hears, but she need not regard any of them; she knows what newspaper men are.
Give my best love and ever so many kisses to our little daughter. I am very much troubled about her health, and hope it will not make her permanently delicate.
I am longing very very much to see my own Wifie. I love you, my darling, more and more every day, and I should feel quite reconciled to giving up politics for ever and living with my sweet Katie all by ourselves away from everybody and everything. I do not think anything will ever induce me to speak from a platform again. I always disliked it excessively, but I should loathe it now. Wifie must not, however, suppose that I am annoyed with the way things have gone. On the contrary, everything has succeeded remarkably, and much better than anybody could have expected.