MY DEAR A.,--I cannot tell you how much I was touched by your letter of the 18th of November, following the round-robin, the letter of Mrs. J. and that of Charley. And what could have possessed my brothers and sisters, and nieces, and “their cousins and your aunts” to club together a contribution on the occasion, as if nobody in the family had ever got to have a seventieth birthday, or ever expected to! Well, it was indeed truly good and thoughtful of you all, and it gratified me beyond measure. As you were the organ of the family, upon the occasion, let me ask you to be the medium for conveying to one and all my acknowledgments and most hearty thanks for their words and deeds and kind thoughts of me at this interesting time. And now what I am to do with the presents that have poured in, that is, what am I to present to myself in your name, and keep as a souvenir,--that is the question which is exercising my mind. It must be something personal to myself, and I am not much given to personal adornment, and have few personal wants beyond daily food and clothing, of which I always say that “the old is better.” But I have got an idea,--which I will not put on paper yet, because I may change my mind and not carry it out. You shall see in time. “Aunt J.” and I are having a nice time here in Paris, in spite of the short and dark days. But we have been very, very busy, each in our way, and now and then busy in company, as we have been to-day. And then at evening we come back to our little room, and have the nicest little dinner together in the little _salle-à-manger_ of our little nice hotel; or rarely we go out, but never to fare better; and we have been invited to three dinner parties, each notable and enjoyable in its way. And now I have to-morrow one more day of botanical work, and then we expect to go back on Monday to Kew, and to the lodgings which we occupied a dozen years ago. You can write to your aunty directly there: Mrs. Shepherd’s, “Charlton House,” Kew. Don’t suppose that because it has a name, the house is a grand one. Not a bit of it. But in England, houses, like babies, have names given them when they are little. Good-by. With dear love to all, along with thanks, I am Your affectionate ASA GRAY. TO MESSRS. REDFIELD AND CANBY. KEW, December 12, 1880. MY DEAR BRETHREN, REDFIELD AND CANBY,--I think I had a letter from each of you, and that you had some response from me of some sort (and one or two papers, etc., have come from Redfield), but that was so far back in memory when we were staying in Kew before, that it seems to belong to that early phase in my existence when I was living on the other side of the ocean; and that seems as widely distant in time as the ocean is wide in space! It is only by the almanac that we know that we left Cambridge less than three and a half months ago.