Dear Children,

The little notes shall go as fast as steam can take them.

Our hearts already went. Would we could mail our faces for your dear encouragement.

Remember

          The longest day that God appoints
          Will finish with the sun.
          Anguish can travel to its stake,
          And then it must return.

I am in bed to-day - a curious place for me, and cannot write as well as if I was a firmer, but love as well, and long more. Tell us all the load. Amherst's little basket is never so full but it holds more. That's a basket's cause. Not a flake assaults my birds but it freezes me. Comfort, little creatures - whatever befall us, this world is but this world. Think of that great courageous place we have never seen!

Write at once, please. I am so full of grief and surprise and physical weakness. I cannot speak until I know.

                                                                                                       Lovingly,

                                                                                                            Emily.