06. Harry's Letters, May 28 - July 30, 1865

find is to my advantage to remain either here or in San Francisco until another summer. I find encouragement in your later letters -- and they but add to my impatience to be near you again, and as you say "settle affairs." I read a published letter from Portland yesterday in which the beauties of that fair city were described. And with that description came a longing to revisit its islands and to go again to Cape Cottage with Mrs Nellie Mighels to lean on my arm as she ran over the rocks. This would be an improvement on a former trip when that same Nellie with another surname had to lend her assistance to a certain crippled soger boy, in his "getting up stairs."

As you say, Nevada is "a long

way off," and pleasantly as I am situated here, I should much prefer being able to offer you a home in San Francisco. But we have pleasant times here. No longer ago than last Friday (today is Sunday) I was surrounded and held prisoner in my sanctum by three young ladies who told me with much emphasis that I must go visit them on an excursion to Lake Bigler. One of the determined females was Miss Grace Treadway, a sweet damsel of 18 summers with large, fine, lustrous black eyes and raven hair -- and oh! such an exquisite mouth! What do you think of that? The others were newly married folks and told me that I must come, whether or no. They were to have a dance, and a sail on the lake and all sorts of a good time, and then they had such a charming partner picked out for me

in the person of Miss Thompson, whom they knew would be overjoyed to go with me, if I would only ask her. What could I do? How in the world could I refuse? "Of course you went" say you. And of course I would have gone, but business would not admit of it and so I told the unjust fair ones. And so they went without me, and just as good fortune would have it, that day I got a letter from "the girl I left behind me" and that letter reminded me that I could forego picnics and pleasant parties in anticipation of the happy times in store when she and I should meet again.

That "diamond ring" is ready for you whenever you will accept it.

Shall I send it by Express? or shall I bring it with me when I come? You may elect as you choose. By the way a certain ring with a small square setting is shining brightly this morning on the little finger of my left hand. It is a sort of family ring, reminding me of the maiden who accused me of stealing it and of her good brother from whom it was a birth day present. By the by, your birth day is on the 10th of September, is it not? Let me know in time, so that I may be able to celebrate it after an appropriate fashion.

I almost envy you your dreamy, quiet, happy days at "Frosty Retreat." I applaud your resolution when "gay and happy still," and to make the most of your calm, peaceful life. What

a startling contrast between the history of your life and mine! Mine more than half stormy, yours all gladness and sunshine. Perhaps my past experience was a necessity to prepare me to appreciate the holiness and purity of home life such as you and my dear cousin Lue have grown up in and which has for so many years been denied to me. "A rovers' life for me" was my uppermost wish when a boy; and without the actual experience of such a life to teach me the worst of home and the sacredness of home ties I should have been yet in the same wild humor that you noticed in me five years ago. I shall never forget your honest opinion of that young man. You hit it just right. I hope he has improved.