...perfectly silly of you, dearest, to speak of repaying me. All I possess will be yours some day, so why begrudge you a little of what should be yours now? Your dear father perhaps thought he was doing the right thing for both of us when he left everything to me during my lifetime, but I do not believe it was fair....There will not be a great deal, of course. You understand how heavy my expenses have been....In any case, you are in wretched health, my dear boy. Nothing must stand in the way of your complete recovery. When you are completely recovered, well and strong and eager to take up life where this cruel war cut it off, I shall be the happiest mother alive. I am sure you will have no difficulty in establishing yourself. They tell me the returned soldiers are not having an easy time finding satisfactory and lucrative positions. It is a shame the way certain concerns have treated a good many of them, after actually promising to hold their places open for them. But with you it will be different. I spoke to Mr. Roberts yesterday about you. He wants to have a talk with you. I have an idea he wants to put you in charge of one of their offices in Spain. At any rate, he asked if you spoke Spanish well....So I can easily afford to increase your allowance to one hundred and fifty a month. More, if you should ask for it, but you are so proud and self-reliant I can do absolutely nothing with you, dear boy. I quite understand your unwillingness to accept more than you actually need from me. It is splendid, and I am very proud of you....This girl you wrote me about, is she so very rich?...Your father used to speak of a young man named Windom and how he envied him because he was so tall and handsome. Of course, your dear father was a small boy then, and that is always one of the laments of small boys. That, and falling in love with women old enough to be their mothers....Do write me often. But don't be angry with me if I fail to answer all of your letters. I am so frightfully busy. I rarely ever have more than a minute to myself. How I have managed to find the time to write this long letter to you I cannot imagine. It is really quite a nice long one, isn't it?...and don't be writing home to me in a few weeks to say you are engaged to be married to her. It took me a great many years to convert your dear father into what he was as you knew him. I don't relish the thought at my time of life of transforming a crude farmer's daughter into a Fifth Avenue lady, no matter how pretty she may be in the rough. The days of Cinderella are long since past. One has so much to overcome in the way of a voice with these country girls, to say nothing of the letter r. Your poor father never quite got over being an Indiana farmer's son, but he did manage to subdue the aforesaid letter....And these country-girls take a harmless, amusing flirtation very seriously, dear boy.... Your adoring mother.