It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at the station yesterday—& this morning when I woke, I couldn’t seem to accept the dismal truth that you were really gone, & the pleasant tramping & talking at an end. Ah, my boy, it has been such a rich holiday to me; & I feel under such deep & honest obligations to you for coming. I am putting out of my mind all memory of the times when I misbehaved toward you & hurt you; I am resolved to consider it forgiven, & to store up & remember only the charming hours of the journeys, & the times when I was not unworthy to be with you & share a companionship which to me stands first after Livy’s. It is justifiable to do this—for why should I let my small infirmities of disposition live & grovel among my mental pictures of the eternal sublimities of the Alps?

Livy can’t accept or endure the fact that you are gone. But you are—& we cannot get around it. So take our love with you—& bear it also over sea to Harmony—& God bless you both.

(Inside)

Dear Joe

I wont mar Mr Clemens note except to say that we do miss you desperately, that we want some one to knock on the door & waken us in the morning, that we want many things that you would used to do when you were here, but at any rate there is one thing left to us and that is a stronger affection for you than when you came to us—

With deepest love to Harmony, affectionately