"I couldn't go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day: and I wouldn't like to spend _Sundays_ that way. So you see it would take _23 weeks_ of hard work. Really, my dear child, I _cannot spare the time_. "Why haven't I written since my last letter? Why, how _could_ I, you silly silly child? How could I have written _since the last time_ I _did_ write? Now, you just try it with kissing. Go and kiss Nellie, from me, several times, and take care to manage it so as to have kissed her _since the last time_ you _did_ kiss her. Now go back to your place, and I'll question you. "'Have you kissed her several times?' "'Yes, darling Uncle.' "'What o'clock was it when you gave her the _last_ kiss?' "'5 minutes past 10, Uncle.' "'Very well, now, have you kissed her _since_?' "'Well--I--ahem! ahem! ahem! (excuse me, Uncle, I've got a bad cough). I--think--that--I--that is, you, know, I----' "'Yes, I see! "Isa" begins with "I," and it seems to me as if she was going to _end_ with "I," _this_ time!' "Anyhow, my not writing hasn't been because I was _ill_, but because I was a horrid lazy old thing, who kept putting it off from day to day, till at last I said to myself, 'WHO ROAR! There's no time to write now, because they _sail_ on the 1st of April.'[1] In fact, I shouldn't have been a bit surprised if this letter had been from _Fulham_, instead of Louisville. Well, I suppose you _will_ be there by about the middle of May. But mind you don't write to me from there! Please, _please_, no more horrid letters from you! I _do_ hate them so! And as for _kissing_ them when I get them, why, I'd just as soon kiss--kiss--kiss _you_, you tiresome thing! So there now! "Thank you very much for those 2 photographs--I liked them--hum--_pretty_ well. I can't honestly say I thought them the very best I had ever seen. "Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and 1/2 of a kiss to Nellie, and 1/200 a kiss to Emsie, and 1/2,000,000 a kiss to yourself. So, with fondest love, I am, my darling, your loving Uncle, "C. L. DODGSON." And now, in the postscript, comes one of the rare instances in which Lewis Carroll showed his deep religious feeling. It runs-- "_P.S._--I've thought about that little prayer you asked me to write for Nellie and Emsie. But I would like, first, to have the words of the one I wrote for _you_, and the words of what they _now_ say, if they say any. And then I will pray to our Heavenly Father to help me to write a prayer that will be really fit for them to use."