I’m sure my sewing girl hasn’t any doubt but that it exists!

Where do you think my new novel is?  In the waste-basket.  I can see myself that it’s no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes that, what would be the judgment of a critical public?

Later

I address you, Daddy, from a bed of pain.  For two days I’ve been laid up with swollen tonsils; I can just swallow hot milk, and that is all. `What were your parents thinking of not to have those tonsils out when you were a baby?’ the doctor wished to know.  I’m sure I haven’t an idea, but I doubt if they were thinking much about me. 
Yours,
J. A.

Next morning

I just read this over before sealing it.  I don’t know why I cast such a misty atmosphere over life.  I hasten to assure you that I am young and happy and exuberant; and I trust you are the same.  Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with ALIVEDNESS of spirit, so even if your hair is grey, Daddy, you can still be a boy. 
Affectionately,
Judy

12th Jan. 
Dear Mr. Philanthropist,

Your cheque for my family came yesterday.  Thank you so much!  I cut gymnasium and took it down to them right after luncheon, and you should have seen the girl’s face!  She was so surprised and happy and relieved that she looked almost young; and she’s only twenty-four.  Isn’t it pitiful?

Anyway, she feels now as though all the good things were coming together.  She has steady work ahead for two months—­someone’s getting married, and there’s a trousseau to make.

`Thank the good Lord!’ cried the mother, when she grasped the fact that that small piece of paper was one hundred dollars.

`It wasn’t the good Lord at all,’ said I, `it was Daddy-Long-Legs.’  (Mr. Smith, I called you.)

`But it was the good Lord who put it in his mind,’ said she.

`Not at all!  I put it in his mind myself,’ said I.

But anyway, Daddy, I trust the good Lord will reward you suitably. 
You deserve ten thousand years out of purgatory. 
                   Yours most gratefully,
                                           Judy Abbott

15th Feb. 
May it please Your Most Excellent Majesty: 

This morning I did eat my breakfast upon a cold turkey pie and a goose, and I did send for a cup of tee (a china drink) of which I had never drank before.

Don’t be nervous, Daddy—­I haven’t lost my mind; I’m merely quoting Sam’l Pepys.  We’re reading him in connection with English History, original sources.  Sallie and Julia and I converse now in the language of 1660.  Listen to this: 

`I went to Charing Cross to see Major Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered:  he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.’  And this:  `Dined with my lady who is in handsome mourning for her brother who died yesterday of spotted fever.’