Writing that word 'acting' reminds me of our baby's new nurse--rather an inconsequent style of writing this, you will perhaps say, for a woman who is claiming a newly-developed talent for business; but it is what you asked for. Baby's nurse is the oddest woman, and such a treasure! I will tell you how she came to me, and really it is not out of proportion, for it was certainly the most striking event in my life since you left me. She came in answer to my advertisement--she was the first candidate, her name is Bessie Jenkins, her husband is somewhere in the Western States. They had misfortunes, and were obliged to part for a while, like ourselves. I suppose it was that likeness in unlikeness which attracted me towards the good woman from the first. She spoke with a hearty love and a hearty sorrow of her absent husband and her dead baby, only a day or two dead when she came to me, and I shall never forget her face when she took our little Mary in her arms, and saw how delicate the child was. The very way she said: 'This won't do you don't understand babies, ma'am;' put aside the food which Jessie and I had been messing up unskilfully; and made some mysterious alterations in the way the child's clothes were put on, made me feel that the right person had been sent to me. Dr. Clark just looked at her and said, 'She will do; make sure of her, Mrs. Griswold;' and I asked her if she could come to me at once--if she could stay that very night; she said she would, and went and fetched her things on the spot. We are quite friends--we were from the beginning--and she takes almost as much care of me as of little Mary; even that she does cleverly, and has avoided making any jealousy or confusion in the house, which was just what I dreaded, you know, when the doctor told me I must have a nurse. Mrs. Jenkins is a good-looking woman, tall, large, active, with a very fair skin, and fine, honest, gray eyes. She says she does not know exactly how old she is, and I believe her--she looks about five-and-twenty; she is very well spoken for a woman of her class, and not at all ignorant. We have long talks in the nursery and in our drives--for I never go out without nurse and baby; it is so horribly dull to drive out alone; and I find I learn a good deal from her about the realities of life as they exist for women who have not been taken the care of that you have taken of me.