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unfailing courtesy and patience and charity so beautiful in him we mourn; and I say to myself, "I 
will try to be better, because this man called me friend."

I went last week to see my dear Phoebe Church. And I gave myself then the pleasure of reading to 
her ^the [[Aydoun's]] "Ballad of the Bruce." Long ago she promised that she would never read it herself until after I should have read it to her; and circumstances have always prevented my doing it. You know that Phoebe's far-off grandfather — far away by five hundred years and more — was the "Sir Simon of the Sea" whom Lord Douglas loved so much and who carried the heart of King Robert back to Scotland. (The ballad is in Bryant's Library of Poetry and Song".)

The words I have just written remind me that [[Whittier's]] seventeenth birthday was celebrated last week. If I did not suppose that your N. Y. papers gave you [[strikethrough]] the best [[/strikethrough]] an excellent account of the words said about the man whom SW England delights to honor, I should send you one of ours - How far I have [[arrived?]]

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Thanks to Ida and Sara for postal and letter. I wanted Mrs. Lyman's address because I had 
promised to send her a [[wee]] book, which I hope she has received.
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