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with the notes from your letters, & copy what you say in this letter about Saucy Calf, is very interesting.

The Bureau has made you a liberal allowance, and when you get home we must talk over your work & plans for the next fiscal year. I understand that you have not yet asked for leave. I suppose there is time. As soon as I can get into the attic I will send your valise by express. 

Just now the house is all torn up. Everything is out of the parlor but the bookcase & the piano which are in the middle of the floor. The walls & ceiling are scraped & painted up, and part of the hall. The men will be here soon to go on with the work. The floors are covered with heavy builder's paper, so nothing reaches the parquette flooring. When the parlor is papered, I shall have the woodwork painted before the furniture is moved back. That will be a job for all the books had to be taken out of the bookcase. When I can clear the lodge & dining room I shall paper the ceiling of the latter, & the ceiling of the study, and then paint all the woodwork. I hope I shall get thro without being made ill by it all. 

We have had intensely hot weather & no rain for over a month. Last evening a violent thunderstorm & some rain, but it is clear again today. I hope you will keep well.

I am looking for you on the 3d of July.

I return the letters. Send me back my nieces letter. I've not her address & cant recall her name to write her when I can find time. Mrs Nuttall is in town, staying at Congress Hall Hotel on New Jersey Ave.

Goodbye. Ever Affly, [[signature]] M. [[/signature]]