You know I’m no great hand at letter writing when I have no stenographer at hand.  It may not be courteous of me to say I am writing to you because I am the lonesomest old party you have seen in a half a century, but you have your dear sister’s sweet disposition, and I know you will forgive me.  I am all alone in this packing-box of a house, when I expected to be at sea and sailing for Newport to say how d’you do on my way to New York.  I wanted to have the pleasure of seeing your kindly face and of having you take that niece of yours in hand for a time.  The girl is getting beyond me, and when I want to bluster she looks at me just as her mother used to and I get so weak that you could knock me over with a feather.  She looks so much like Dorothy that sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is not her mother sitting at the other end of the table.

When a man is sixty, and begins to think he owns his fair share of the earth, or even a bit more, I daresay that it does him good to be humbled a little, but it’s a hard thing to become used to.  Hitherto when Helen wanted anything I always let her have it, for on the whole she has always been sensible in her desires and requests, or maybe I have been an old fool.  Didn’t some Frenchman say once that an old man is a fellow who thinks himself wise because he’s been a fool longer than other people?  Anyway, that’s me!  For the last few days I have been itching to scrap with her, and I find she minds me about as much as the man in the moon.

Of course, Jennie, it is a disgruntled old brother-in-law who writes this, and you will have to make allowances.

Would you believe that last night she went out and remained till after midnight in a sailor’s house, watching a sick child, after I had objected to her doing so, as forcibly as I could?  I had to send the queer female native who looks after us to that shanty to bring her back, and the child returned with swollen eyes and a drawn face that positively hurt me to see.  She has derived so much benefit from her stay here, and was looking so splendidly just a few days ago, that I felt angry enough to have whipped her, if a silly old chap like me could ever chastise a daughter like Helen.  At any rate I rushed her off to bed, and I know she never went there for a long time.  I have no doubt that instead of sleeping she was probably scribbling to you.

This morning she was down before eight, and I will acknowledge that she looked better than I had expected.  Yet there were great dark rings under her eyes, and I tried to look as disagreeable as possible.  But you women are too smart for an old fellow like me.  She simply cuddled up to me as I sat in the only armchair in Sweetapple Cove and put her arm around my neck, and I could only grumble a little like a decrepit idiot.

Then she looked out of doors and rushed back again, and put on that crazy woollen cap you crocheted for her, and opened the door to the kitchen, where Susie was singing some hoarse ditty of her own, and told her that she was going out again to see that child, and that she would be back in a few minutes.  That Susie showed her sense, and I’m going to give her a big tip.