How many times I have thought of writing a line to try whether you still remember your old friends, Mrs. Ellis and her son, with any such interest as has ever gathered about my recollection of you and of our acquaintance, to me so delightful, in those faraway As Written: far away days at SwampscottEditorial Note: Swampscott, Massachusetts.
My Mother died in 1890, and O the difference to me!
I have kept the even tenor of my way, teaching school with a persistence that would be monotony but for the stimulus and cheer that come through association with children. I have my own four, and my thousand and more in school, to keep me feeling young, however Time's fingers may have left their mark on the outward form.
And you, you, what can I say! Words fail when I think of the marvelous As Written: marvellous work thou hast wrought!
It may be presumption in me to address you. I do so, not in the light of the magnificence of your achievement, but out of my cherished remembrance of those precious evenings in the little sitting room As Written: sitting-room at Swampscott, when the words of Jesus, of Truth, were so illumined by your inspired interpretation.
All that may have passed from your memory, but not from mine.
Accept my heartfelt wishes for your further success and for your peace of mind under the irritating assaults of malicious enemies.