"You will forgive me, will you not, for not having written to you for so long a time? I could not help it, you see. I know from your last letter that you received the one my uncle wrote to you, and that you would have flown to my side if you had had the means. It seems so cruel that you should be in such straits for money. Why do you not ask Mr. Seymour straightforwardly to pay you what he must owe you? It must be a good sum by this time. But perhaps it is wrong of me to say to you, why do you not do this or that?--for surely you must know what is best to be done, and the right time to do it. It is easy to judge for others, is it not, my dearest? I have the fullest faith and confidence in you; and, my dear, you must not worry about me. My uncle is the dearest friend I could have met with. He is kindness itself, and I feel that he loves me as if I were his daughter. And I have money--not much, Kingsley, dear, but enough--to go on with. Before baby came I earned some, and presently, when she can crawl, and walk, and speak--oh, Kingsley, the wonder of it!--I shall earn more. Uncle is so good to me that I need very little; but still some things are necessary which uncle does not understand about, and he has not more than he knows what to do with. Then, of course, I am an expense to him; but he never makes the least mention of that--he is too considerate, and I know he is glad to have me with him--and to have baby, too, although I fancy he does not quite know yet what to make of the darling. Indeed, I half think he is frightened of her. I see him sometimes looking at her when she is asleep with such a funny look in his eyes that I can hardly keep from laughing. The idea of a great big man being frightened of a little baby! But, Kingsley, dear (I would not confess it to anybody but you), I, too, am frightened of baby a little sometimes, when she lies in my lap, staring at me solemnly with her beautiful eyes--the color of yours, dearest--wide, wide open, without even so much as a blink in them. She seems to be reading me through and through. 'What are you thinking of, darling?' I whisper to her; and though of course she cannot answer me, I am sure that she understands, and that I should be very much astonished if I knew what was passing through her mind. She is going to be a very wise little body--I can see that--and very sweet and beautiful, and a great blessing to us. But she is that already, the greatest, the most precious that has ever fallen to my lot. You see, my dear husband, I look upon baby and you as almost one person; I cannot think of one without the other, it is impossible to separate you; so that when I say that baby is the greatest blessing that was ever given to me, I mean you as well as our darling....