DEAR MR. GRAY: Ever since your return from the East I have been intending to write to you. I have time and again reproached myself for my neglect to do so. I have not been very well. About the first of September I had one of my old dyspeptic attacks, and since then my stomach has troubled me more or less, reducing me in weight and making me despondent. I think, however, I am now on the upgrade once more. After you left here Julia was quite sick for a spell. She was on the verge of nervous prostration. I packed her off to Lynch's for a month, and she came back very much improved, and now she weighs more than ever before. The children are well. Trotty attends a day school near by. Pinny has gone back to his military school, and is doing _very well_. I would like to send Daisy to the same school, for he is not doing well at public school; but my expenses have been so large the last year that I cannot incur any further expense. The babies are doing finely. The boy is as fat as butter, and handsome as ever. Little Ruth cut her first tooth to-day. I never loved a baby as I love her. She is very well now; her flesh has become solid and she is gaining in weight. She is playful and good-natured, sure prognostics of good health. Roswell and Etta went East the 9th of September, and were gone fifteen days; they visited Amherst, Boston, New York, Greenfield, Brattleboro, and Newfane. Roswell regretted not knowing your whereabouts, for he wanted to have you along for a sentimental journey in Vermont. Etta is now with us. She returns to Kansas City next Sunday night. I am pained to hear of Dr. Johnson's illness; pray, give him my love and tell him that he ought to be less frisky if he hopes to keep his limbs sound. I am not surprised that you have got to go South. And I am glad of it. Yes, I am glad to know that you will get away from business and that implacable crowd who are constantly trying to bleed you of money. I want to see you enjoying life as far as you can, and I want to see _you_ getting actual benefit from the money which you have earned by your many years of conscientious industry. To me there is no other spectacle in the world so humiliating as that of people laying themselves out to extort money from others. Do tear yourself away from the sponges. You and Miss Eva ought to have a quiet winter in a congenial climate. I hope you will go to Florida, and, after doing Jacksonville and St. Augustine, why not rent a little furnished cottage and keep house for the winter? Along in February I will run down and make you a visit. Now, think this over, and let me know what you think of it. Mr. Gray, there is no need of there being any sentimentality between us; there never has been. Yet there is every reason why the bond of affection should be a very strong one. My father and you were associates many years, and at his death he very