He often said to me:
"When this is all over,--when we have won the victory,--_then_ I
will write to the duchess." But when it was over and the flag raised
again at Sumter his arm was smitten down with the news of our
President's death! We all appreciate your noble and true sympathy
through the dark hour of our national trial. You and yours are almost
the only friends we now have left in England. You cannot know what it
was, unless you could imagine your own country to be in danger of
death, extinction of nationality. _That_, dear friend, is an
experience which shows us what we are and what we can feel. I am glad
to hear that we may hope to see your son in this country. I fear so
many pleasant calls will beset his path that we cannot hope for a
moment, but it would give us _all_ the greatest pleasure to see
him here. Our dull, prosy, commonplace, though good old Hartford could
offer few attractions compared with Boston or New York, and yet I hope
he will not leave us out altogether if he comes among us. God bless
him! You are very happy indeed in being permitted to keep all your
dear ones and see them growing up.
I want to ask a favor. Do you have, as we do, _cartes de visite_?
If you have, and could send me one of yourself and the duke and of
Lady Edith and your eldest son, I should be so very glad to see how
you are looking now; and the dear mother, too, I should so like to see
how she looks.
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