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[[preprinted]]
Leyland Line
[[image - red flag on a pole]]
S. S. "DEVONIAN"
^[[July 22]] 190^[[0.]]
[[/preprinted]]

[[marginalia]]
My opal ring is a great comfort. I enjoy it & all it stands for and try not to be homesick.
[[/marginalia]]

My dear Francis,
All the way across the ocean for we shall D.V. see land tonight you have been in my thoughts and in my prayers.  It was more of a parting than we have every had before, for it seems as tho. we had come to a parting of the ways, you to enter a field where I shall not be with you constantly and I to return to a home where the one for whom I have so long made a home has gone.  I feel at times very lonely thinking that you will not be there to welcome me on my return.  I do not speak of this with any selfish regret, for I am glad for the honor and for the new work that has come to you, work in which I want you to achieve much credit, and to find in it a new delight and a relief from the drudgery of the office life.  I solace myself with the thought and that I have lived to see the change that has come to you, so in a way I can forecast your future after I am gone from this life.  I look forward with pleasure to the help I hope to give you in preparing your notes for publication.  So we shall still work together while I live, as we have done for so many, many years.