Leigh is living with me now. Poor chap, the death of his aunt has made him an orphan. I feel a profound compassion for any one whom an untoward fate compels to live with _me_. However, such a one is sure to be a good deal alone, which is a mitigation. With good wishes for all your people, I am sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Berkeley, December 27, 1893.] MY DEAR BLANCHE, I'm sending you (by way of pretext for writing you) a magazine that I asked Richard to take to you last evening, but which he forgot. There's an illustrated article on gargoyles and the like, which will interest you. Some of the creatures are delicious--more so than I had the sense to perceive when I saw them alive on Notre Dame. I want to thank you too for the beautiful muffler before I take to my willow chair, happy in the prospect of death. For at this hour, 10:35 p. m., I "have on" a very promising case of asthma. If I come out of it decently alive in a week or so I shall go over to your house and see the finished portrait if it is "still there," like the flag in our national anthem. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Oakland, July 31, 1894.] MY DEAR BLANCHE, If you are not utterly devoured by mosquitoes perhaps you'll go to the postoffice and get this. In that hope I write, not without a strong sense of the existence of the clerks in the Dead Letter Office at Washington. I hope you are (despite the mosquitoes) having "heaps" of rest and happiness. As to me, I have only just recovered sufficiently to be out, and "improved the occasion" by going to San Francisco yesterday and returning on the 11:15 boat. I saw Richard, and he seemed quite solemn at the thought of the dispersal of his family to the four winds. I have a joyous letter from Leigh dated "on the road," nearing Yosemite. He has been passing through the storied land of Bret Harte, and is permeated with a sense of its beauty and romance. When shall you return? May I hope, then, to see you? Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. P.S. Here are things that I cut out for memoranda. On second thought _I_ know all that; so send them to you for the betterment of your mind and heart. B. [San Jose, October 17, 1894.] MY DEAR BLANCHE, Your kindly note was among a number which I put into my pocket at the postoffice and forgot until last evening when I returned from Oakland. (I dared remain up there only a few hours, and the visit did me no good.) Of course I should have known that your good heart would prompt the wish to hear from your patient, but I fear I was a trifle misanthropic all last week, and indisposed to communicate with my species. I came here on Monday of last week, and the change has done me good. I have no asthma and am slowly getting back my strength.