Nellie dear,Mamma and I have been having a slight altercation. She insisted that a Christmas gift in January was no Christmas gift at all. I on the other hand declared that some things were difficult to send several hundred miles and then be lugged back part way. Then she said "have it your own way." Hence this rainy December evening I grasp my pen and portfolio to tell you that I will bring my slight token of esteem in my trunk and duly offer it to your ladyship Friday, January the third and in the mean time I beg of you be assured of my "wifely" affection and accept my hearty greetings for a gladsome Christmas.
I trust you reached home safely and found your people in their usual health, and are having good times. Please remember me to them all, - not forgetting Doctor of course.
I narrowly escaped getting left in Springfield because Cooley's clock was slow. We rode part way to Albany in the same car with all the dignitaries - e.g. Miss Randolph (she called me Lucy!) Miss Alice Stevens & Mrs. Mead. Cooley's fried oysters disagreed with me and kept me awake most all night so that I almost was carried through Buffalo - In fact I had to pile out without washing my face, combing my hair or fastening my waist.
I have been very quietly at home most of the time with the exception of a few shopping excursions and a very long call on Sally Budd. She is very contented here and has developed into a finer girl than ever.
My "infant" wrote me a detailed account of her homeward journey the evening of the day she reached home and said that she was going to bed having already had two naps. Elizabeth enclosed a note telling me that at least she had been out-doors and had walked about two blocks and consequently felt greatly encouraged.
I've only had a glimpse of Mattie on the street. Charles Lysander is here with Snell.
I am reading Sally McLean Green's latest "Vesty of the Basins" and find it decidedly queer though less slanderous & more kind than her earlier books.
Mamma sends her love and gratitude for putting up with my idiosyncracies [sic] for three years and a half, - she's had it to do for the other twenty and knows what it means!
Good Night, dear.
Lucy F. B.Christmas-tide
Eighteen Ninety-Five