Gresham, Sept. 19, 19—.
I am writing to you at my earliest opportunity. I made the journey without any mishaps and in great comfort. I was astonished to find how luxurious traveling by rail is. I shall have to confess to you that I talked to some persons I met on the train. They were all of them going to Gresham and were very kind to me. I found myself conversing with them before I remembered your admonitions to be very careful about making acquaintances. I know in England it is very bad form, but I felt somehow it would have been much worse form to hold myself aloof when they were one and all so kind to me.
The Institute of Gresham is admirable in every particular. My instruction has been so thorough, thanks to your unceasing efforts, that I find I can take a very good stand. I have not divulged that an Oxford graduate has been my teacher. I am well up in Algebra, Latin and French, although my French accent is not all that it should be.
Miss Cox, the singing teacher, takes a great interest in my voice but evidently has no personal feeling for me. I am very grateful to you for the sacrifices you have made to send me to boarding school, and am endeavoring to take advantage of every opportunity to perfect my education.
Very respectfully,
Annie de Vere Pore.
Page Allison to her father, Dr. James Allison, Milton, Va.
Gresham, Sept. 19, 19—.
I can hardly believe it is only a few days since I left Bracken. It seems ages and eons. I have a million things to tell you. I made friends with some delightful people on the train, Mr. Jeffry Tucker and his twin daughters, Dum and Dee. Mr. Tucker says he knows you; and my eyes were so like yours he came mighty near giving me the fraternity grip. He is the youngest man to be grown up and have almost grown-up daughters I ever saw. Their mother is dead, too. So many mothers seem to be dead.
We made friends with another girl on the train, Annie Pore from Price's Landing. She had never been on the train before, but although she seemed terribly shy and was dressed in a most pathetic get-up, still she had all the bearing a and carriage of a grande dame. She is a half-orphan, too, and I have a kind of idea that her father is not to say so intimate with his daughter as some other fathers who shall be nameless. She has been writing to her paternal parent for the last hour, and she actually copied the letter and seemed to be writing with as much care as though it had to be handed in. You don't want me to write that way to you, do you?
Gresham is splendid. It is a beautiful building, red brick with great white columns, giving it the look of a modern Parthenon. It is on top of a hill overlooking the little town and has a beautiful lawn with great chestnut trees and oaks. But best of all is the view of the mountains. When it is clear they seem quite close, almost as though we could walk to them, and at other times they disappear altogether.