I should be delighted to come and dine with you on your birthday, and to
be as merry as I wish you to be always; but as I am going, within a very
few days afterwards, a very long distance from home, and shall not see
any of my children for six long months, I have made up my mind to pass
all that week at home for their sakes; just as you would like your papa
and mamma to spend all the time they possibly could spare with you if
they were about to make a dreary voyage to America; which is what I am
going to do myself.
But although I cannot come to see you on that day, you may be sure I
shall not forget that it is your birthday, and that I shall drink your
health and many happy returns, in a glass of wine, filled as full as it
will hold. And I shall dine at half-past five myself, so that we may
both be drinking our wine at the same time; and I shall tell my Mary
(for I have got a daughter of that name but she is a very small one as
yet) to drink your health too; and we shall try and make believe that
you are here, or that we are in Russell Square, which is the best thing
we can do, I think, under the circumstances.
You are growing up so fast that by the time I come home again I expect
you will be almost a woman; and in a very few years we shall be saying
to each other: "Don't you remember what the birthdays used to be in
Russell Square?" and "How strange it seems!" and "How quickly time
passes!" and all that sort of thing, you know. But I shall always be
very glad to be asked on your birthday, and to come if you will let me,
and to send my love to you, and to wish that you may live to be very old
and very happy, which I do now with all my heart.
Believe me always,
My dear Mary,
Yours affectionately.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]