Dearest Wifie, your letter has frightened me more than I can tell you. Do write, my darling, and tell me that you are better. I have had nothing from you for several days. I am quite well and strong again. We have made arrangements so that everybody will be allowed to feed himself for the future, the poorer men getting so much a week. YOUR OWN HUSBAND. {135} _December_ 16, 1881. MY OWN QUEENIE,--I think it will be best to make the change you suggest in yours of yesterday, but you need not trouble or fatigue yourself about it immediately. I am going on all right, darling, and expect to have another game of ball to-morrow, but shall take care not to heat myself. I could not very well make any arrangement or enter into any undertaking with Government unless I retired altogether from politics. Your letter has relieved me very much. I have been dreadfully frightened about you for the last week. Do take care of yourself, my own darling, and I will also take good care of myself for the future. We have both to live for each other for many happy years together. You need not write near so heavily or use so much ink, and it would be also better to have a softer paper, more like blotting paper. YOUR OWN KING. _December_ 22, 1881. Many happy returns of Christmas, my own darling. Though your husband cannot be with you this time, he looks forward to very many happy returns with you. I am very, very happy that my own Wifie is better, and that she has been relieved from some of the intolerable annoyance for a time. Your husband is quite well. We have succeeded in getting our new exercise ground. ALWAYS YOUR LOVING KING. _Xmas Eve._ Letters of 22nd and 23rd arrived safely. MY OWN QUEENIE,--Just as the coming day is approaching I send my own love what she has asked me for, and trust that it will make her forget our squabble of last Xmas Day, as I had long since forgotten it. My darling, you are and always will be everything to me, and every day you become more and more, if possible, more than everything to me. {136} [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LETTER ON p. 134] {137} {138}