My dear Rob, Behold a long-sought "quiet hour" for you. Let us see how much of a chat it will give us. It was a sudden illness (I ought to explain to you in the beginning) that obliged me to send you only those few words of acknowledgment by last mail. I had arranged for and counted upon a good deal of time with you that morning, and was indeed disappointed to find myself unable to stay at my desk. However, the answer to your good letter was only postponed, not given up, and I am looking over the sheet today with as much enjoyment as if it were quite new. It is right pleasant to know, dear Rob, that the pages I was filling for you in those early days of May reached your hand just after you had read of the defeat at Bull Run, and brought a grain of cheer with them. And the comment that follows your mention of said sad reverse--indeed all you say and have said from the first, about the war--

pleases me very much. I think not another correspondent we have has written on this great subject in a manner so satisfactory to both Ogden and myself as you have invariably done. I thought much of you as we were reading together the other day two out of the several good papers in the September "Atlantic"--that on the "Advantages of Defeat," and Holmes's "Bread and the Newspaper." How excellent they are, and in both how did you find your own ideas reproduced. And, by the way, did you notice what Holmes says of laying down a History he was reading when the war broke out? "It was as interesting as a romance, but the romance of the past grew pale before the red light of the terrible present." And the author: "He could not write about the sixteenth century, any more than we could read about it, while the nineteenth was in the very agony of its great sacrifice." It reminded me so much of what you wrote about your own reading, late in April. And

did we tell you how in the same way we gave up "Gibbon"? Yes, after that mail that reached us on the 28th of June, it suddenly became dry and tedious and within a week went back to rest another decade, perhaps, in the tall book case. It is indeed impossible to interest ourselves in the records of dead and buried ages, when (as is so often said) we are every day now living History so rapidly. And to think how more than ever you are in the midst of it, dear Robin! I don't suppose there is a wakeful hour that Ogden or I forget that. Oh! May "the Angel of His presence" be ever near to guard and keep you from every harm.
In the Septem. "Macmillan" are some words of cheer and God speed that I hope will meet your eye. They were written by Thomas Hughes, immediately on hearing of the affair of 21st July, and you will feel with us that they are peculiarly welcome from so noble a source.
     To your letter again. A thousand thanks for all your mentions of picnics and other jolly doings among

the dear old Mountains. I well understand how glad you were to meet Lizzie there again, and it rejoices me much that you approve of Mr. Cadman so heartily. I have long been sure I should like him. Your remark on the happy effect of "travelling for the love of the thing" is quite just, I think. No doubt there are plenty of folk whom such journeyings do not improve, but they are a small minority. What a "comical figure" you must in truth have made strolling by moonlight "wrapped in a bedquilt"! We never do such delightfully outré things in this part of the world. I wish we could. I get tired sometimes of being "proper" the whole year round, and sick for a lumber-wagon trip to Plattekill and a harum-scarum time among the rocks. But Manila has its advantages, as witness this lovely, lovely day in November, the sweet summer air blowing softly in through my open "windows," and think what a drive I shall presently be taking away off into the country among the fresh green rice-fields. Now I must leave you, dear Robin, till tomorrow.

Saturday, 23rd Novem. Yes, here I come again, but alas! only for a moment. Tomorrow this little sheet starts on its long voyage,--where will it find you?

Wherever it may be, let it convey warmest love to you from both of us. Ogden would have written, too, but he is unusually occupied--for this mail Next week we shall look for another Steamer, and we are thinking eagerly that it may bring further word from you.
God bless and strengthen you for all the duties of your new path, my soldier-brother.

Ever lovingly,
Nellie