you.




To Miss Elsie Dean

_Regarding the Habit of Exaggeration_


During your visit here with my niece, I became much interested in you.

Zoe had often written me of her affection for you, and I can readily
understand her feeling, now that I have your personal acquaintance.

You have no mother, and your father, you say, absorbed in business, like
so many American fathers, seems almost a stranger. Even the most devoted
fathers, rarely understand their daughters.

Now, I want to take the part of a mother and write you to-day, as I
would write my own daughter, had one been bestowed upon me with the many
other blessings which are mine.

I could not ask for a fairer, more amiable, or brighter daughter than
you, nor one possessed of a kinder or more unselfish nature.

You are lovable, entertaining, industrious, and refined.

But you possess one fault which needs eradicating, or at least a
propensity which needs directing.