My dear Nell;-Your letter came just a day or two after I threatened in the Round Robin to sue for a divorce which threat I hereby retract, humbly begging your pardon.
I hope long before you get this my Round Robin has taken you in on its flight. Indeed it is high time he was getting back to me. I suppose there have been various delays caused by people not being at home. Abbie is to start our perpetual '96 Robin as soon as she gets back to College. Did you know they asked Caroline Ransom to join it? She seemed almost like one of the Family any way and was delighted at the invitation to become one of us.
The Mountain Day book came Saturday and was forthwith diligently perused with both smiles and tears. I was glad on the principle that misery loves company to read your confession of homesickness for I feel a great lump in my throat every time I get or write a letter and have lain awake several nights merely with the longing to have everything back as it has been for four years while my constant wonder is how did we ever get through the end of things as well as we did? I should break down utterly and completely if it had all to [be] done over again. And I was pleased with your confession of "stupidity". I am not working so very hard. I go to bed early and get up late and eat three square meals a day but yet I am as listless as a clam most of the time. I just have to pull myself together to get anything done. Consequently I alternate between dreading and looking forward to school which is just four weeks off. If it wasn't for the discipline!
I hope you have found a desirable position ere this. How about that Pennsylvania College? Mamma and I build a great many air-castles this summer one comprises a trip to Boston at the close of school next year with a stop at Middleboro' long enough to get you and bring you home with us for the summer. Make your plans accordingly! You might begin now to break it gently to your folks to all of whom please present my kindest regards.
When next you write please tell me all the College gossip you know. I get no letters, that is haven't had any in weeks and I don't know any thing about any one. But I have been to two Holyoke teas and met lots of nice new "old girls." Jean & Eva Grier gave one at a cottage at Lakewood where they were staying in honor of Ida Galloway of whom you of course have heard. She is the sister of that freak who ironed with Miss Joy and was Eva Grier's chum and is simply charming. I went up on the car with Martha & Kate Clapsadel. We were caught in a thunder-shower and rendered thereby exceedingly damp and uncomfortable - all in our best suits of clothes too! But we forgot it all as soon [as] we began to "talk College" Helen Northrop, Margaret Eastman, "Little Moses", Miss Corwin and Elizabeth Bunnell were all there. Of course I was very glad to see Margaret. You know by sight I'm sure Gertrude Dudley of New Haven who is quite "in" with all the ΣΘΔ girls and comes to South Hadley every Commencement time. I've always wanted to meet her and was glad to at last have the opportunity. Do you remember that little Miss Watkins who was with us over Freshman year? An older sister of hers was there who said she remembered me from our Freshman picture! Then there were two bright girls cousins of Jess Mac Connel's and another girl dating back to '79. Of course our tongues flew and we had just an awfully good time.
Mrs. W. G. Anderson the wife of the director of the Yale Gym. gave the other in honor of Gertrude Dudley at her cottage at Chautauqua. The same ones were there and several others among them a half-sister of Miss Bradford & her half-sister who entered just fifty years ago!
Gertrude Dudley has on foot a scheme for a Holyoke cottage at Chautauqua next year, which I hope will pan out.
I have one key that I think must belong to your desk and I'll send it on. I never should have thought of it if you hadn't mentioned it and even now I am not sure that it is yours but I think it must be. I meant to send it right after your letter came but - !
Yes, Elizabeth's Dr. Nicoll took her crutches away as soon as she reached New York. It was awful at first. She wrote that she cried with the pain night after night but now it is getting better. This very minute the postman left a letter from her but her health isn't mentioned but from all she does she must be pretty well and able to get around quite a little[.]
Miss Wallace does really go to Smith next year as assistant professor in biology. That will be nice for those of her admirers who are left at Holyoke. And she will really be quite accessible to Gertrude. I do wish Jamestown wasn't so far from everybody.
As long as we have gone for good what difference does it make whether our room showed the "fragrance of our presence" or not when the scrub-ladies arrived? I shouldn't have done much either.
Please don't tell me that I was good to room with you for the pleasure was mine. I don't believe any one else ever could have stood my cantankerous irritability for four years - no one ever seemed disposed to make the attempt any way. And you and I did gibe beautifully, tho' the "putting up with things" came from you rather than me. I wanted to go over to your bed that last night and make a pretty speech and tell you that I knew you had been good to me and that I wished we might always stay together but I just couldn't. I was afraid that if I started to say a word I'd break down completely and never regain my composure, and I trusted that you knew and understood it all anyway. Please if you haven't before do so now.
Your loving Lucy Fish
20 West Fourth Street
Jamestown, N. Y.
August the eleventh 1896.