my conscience from knowing that, otherwise I should always feel that I
never should have let him marry me. In most respects I am not a bit
the wife he should have, but I hope I am of some use in his practical
affairs and that at last I can keep him from being imposed upon. I try.
For instance, on the steamer his cap blew overboard. I wish you could
have seen the cap the ship's steward sold him. The thing he bought at
Ras Beebe's store was stylish and subdued compared to it. And I wish you
could have seen that steward when I got through talking to him. Every
day smooth-talking scamps, who know him by reputation, come with schemes
for getting him to invest in something, or with pitiful tales about
being Americans stranded far away from home. I take care of these sharks
and they don't bite me, not often. I told one shabby, red-nosed rascal
yesterday that, so far as he was concerned, no doubt it was tough to be
stranded with no way of getting to the States, as he called them; but
that I hadn't heard yet how the States felt about it. So I help Galusha
with money matters and see that he dresses as he should and eats what
and when he should, and try, with Professor King, his chief assistant
with the expedition, to keep his mind from worry about little things. He
seems very happy and I certainly mean to keep him so, if I can.

We talk about you and Nelson and Captain Jethro every day. The news in
your last letter, the one we found at Gibraltar, was perfectly splendid.
So you are to be married in June. And Galusha and I can't come to your
wedding; that is a shame. By the time we get back you will be so long
settled in the cottage at the radio station that it won't seem new at
all to you. But it will be very new to us and we shall just love to see
it and the new furniture and your presents and everything. We both think
your father's way of taking it perfectly splendid. I am glad he still
won't have a word to say to Marietta Hoag or her crowd of simpletons.
Galusha says to tell your father that he must not feel in the least
obliged to him for his help in exposing Marietta as a cheat. He says it
was very good fun, really, and didn't amount to much, anyway. You and I
know it did, of course, but he always talks that way about anything he
does. And your thanks and Captain Jethro's pleased him very much.

Primmie writes that...

(A page omitted. See Primmie's letter.)

Please keep an eye on her and see that she doesn't set fire to t