nd come. Poor dear man, he was so blue, not about his health but about
giving up the worries down at his office and forgetting them for a
time--if he only will forget them! It took the pressure of the family
and all his best friends, to get him to come--but father and brother
George and Fanny and Eugene Morgan all kept at him so constantly that he
just had to give in. I'm afraid that in my anxiety to get him to do what
the doctors wanted him to, I wasn't able to back up brother George as I
should in his difficulty with Sydney and Amelia. I'm so sorry! George
is more upset than I've ever seen him--they've got what they wanted, and
they're sailing before long, I hear, to live in Florence. Father said he
couldn't stand the constant persuading--I'm afraid the word he used was
"nagging." I can't understand people behaving like that. George says
they may be Ambersons, but they're vulgar! I'm afraid I almost agree
with him. At least, I think they were inconsiderate. But I don't see
why I'm unburdening myself of all this to you, poor darling! We'll have
forgotten all about it long before you come home for the holidays, and
it should mean little or nothing to you, anyway. Forget that I've been
so foolish!

Your father is waiting for me to take a walk with him--that's a splendid
sign, because he hasn't felt he could walk much, at home, lately. I
mustn't keep him waiting. Be careful to wear your mackintosh and rubbers
in rainy weather, and, as soon as it begins to get colder, your ulster.
Wish you could see your father now. Looks so much better! We plan to
stay six weeks if the place agrees with him. It does really seem to
already! He's just called in the door to say he's waiting. Don't smoke
too much, darling boy.

Devotedly, your mother Isabel.

But she did not keep her husband there for the six weeks she
anticipated. She did not keep him anywhere that long. Three weeks after
writing this letter, she telegraphed suddenly to George that they were
leaving for home at once; and four days later, when he and a friend
came whistling into his study, from lunch at the club, he found another
telegram upon his desk.

He read it twice before he comprehended its import.

Papa left us at ten this morning, dearest. Mother.

The friend saw the change in his face. "Not bad news?"

George lifted utterly dumfounded eyes from the yellow paper.

"My father," he said weakly. "She says--she says he's dead. I've got to
go home."

His Uncle