_Mrs. Franklin Bennett to Mrs. Olmsted Morrison._
October 22d.
MY DEAREST MARIAN: How could you think me so cold-blooded as to consider
such a piece of news as your letter contains “_peu de chose_”? I feel
for you, I assure you. What a dilemma! The dear girls! how do they like
the idea? Margaret, as you say, will probably not mind, but Eleanor--so
exquisitely pretty and stylish! It will be rather a thorn in the flesh,
I imagine. O! how I wish I had children--two such lovely girls as yours
would make life a different thing for me!
Of course, the dinner. How could you think of anything else! Invite some
of the professors from the University for _her_, and have the rest of
the company of young society people, so that Eleanor and Margaret can
enjoy it too.
Oh, my dear, I would like to write a long, long letter about this, but I
am in such confusion and hurry! Mr. Bennett has been ordered to
Wiesbaden for the winter, and we sail in a week. I wish I could be in
Baltimore to help you, but it is impossible, of course. I count on your
writing me all your plans, and just how Helen appears, and whether it is
all as dreadful as you now fear. Address to the Langham Hotel until
November 25th, after that, care Brown, Shipley, as usual. Good-by. I
have a thousand things to tell you of, but must put them off until I
reach London and have a moment to myself.
As ever,
Devotedly yours,
A. B.
P.S. Don’t look too much on the dark side of things. I knew a
Philadelphia girl once--the niece of old Colonel Devereaux you know--and
she was rather pretty and quite good form, though a college girl. I
think, however, she had been but _one_ year to college.