enough to buy it. It was Cousin Ann that
put the idea into our heads, but everybody says it
is quite likely and sensible. Cousin Ann
has made us a splendid present of enough money
to bring the water from the well into the kitchen
sink and to put a large stove like a furnace into
the cellar. We would cut two registers behind
the doors in the dining-room and sitting-room
floors, and two little round holes in the ceilings
to let the heat up into two bedrooms, if you are
willing to let us do it. [Mother says that Cousin Ann
is a good and generous person. It is true,
and it makes us very unhappy that we cannot really
love her on account of her being so fault-finding;
but you, being an American Consul and travelling
all over the world, must have seen somebody like her.]
Mr. Harmon is writing to you, but I thought he wouldn’t know so much about us as I do. We have father’s pension; that is three hundred and sixty dollars a year; and one hundred dollars a year from the Charlestown house, but that only lasts for four years; and two hundred dollars a year from the interest on father’s insurance. That makes six hundred and sixty dollars, which is a great deal if you haven’t been used to three thousand, but does not seem to be enough for a family of six. There is the insurance money itself, too, but mother says nothing but a very dreadful need must make us touch that. You see there are four of us children, which with mother makes five, and now there is Julia, which makes six. She is Uncle Allan’s only child. Uncle Allan has nervous prostration and all of mother’s money. We are not poor at all, just now, on account of having exchanged the grand piano for an old-fashioned square and eating up the extra money. It is great fun, and whenever we have anything very good for supper Kathleen says, “Here goes a piano leg!” and Gilbert says, “Let’s have an octave of white notes for Sunday supper, mother!” I send you a little photograph of the family taken together on your side piazza (we call it our piazza, and I hope you don’t mind). I am the tallest girl, with the curly hair. Julia is sitting down in front, hemming. She said we should look so idle if somebody didn’t do something, but she never really hems; and Kathleen is leaning over mother’s shoulder. We all wanted to lean over mother’s shoulder, but Kitty got there first. The big boy is Gilbert. He can’t go to college now, as father intended, and he is very sad and depressed; but mother says he has a splendid chance to show what father’s son can do without any help but his own industry and pluck. Please look carefully at the lady sitting in the chair, for it is our mother. It is only a snap shot, but you can see how beautiful she is. Her hair is very long, and the wave in it is natural. The little boy is Peter. He is the loveliest and the dearest of all of us. The second picture is of me tying up the crimson rambler. I thought you would like to see what a wonderful rose it is. I was standing in