Oh, we had an awful time, sir, going home in the carriage, Helene and I. We both cried, of course, because Zillah was dead, but after we got through crying for that, Helene kept right on crying because she couldn’t understand why a brave girl like Zillah had to be dead. Gee! but Helene takes things hard! Ladies do, I guess.
I hope you’re having a pleasant spree.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of the wall-paperers is living here at the house with us just now. We use him so much, it’s truly a good deal more convenient. And he’s a real nice young fellow, and he plays the piano finely, and he comes from up my way. And it seemed more neighborly, anyway. It’s so large in the house at night just now, and so creaky in the garden.
With kindest regards, good-by for now, from
RAE.
P.S. Don’t tell your guide or any one, but Helene sent Zillah’s mother a check for fifteen hundred dollars. I saw it with my own eyes. And all Zillah asked for that day was just a little blue serge suit. It seems she’d promised her kid sister a little blue serge suit for July, and it sort of worried her.
Helene sent the little blue serge suit, too, and a hat. The hat had bluebells on it. Do you think when you come home, if I haven’t spent too much money on wall-papers, that I could have a blue hat with bluebells on it? Excuse me for bothering you, but you forgot to leave me enough money.
It was some indefinite, pleasant time on Thursday, the twenty-fifth of June, that the Senior Surgeon received the second letter. It was Friday, the twenty-sixth of June, exactly at dawn, that the Senior Surgeon started homeward.
(To be concluded)