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Phil. Dec 18/66

Dear Tom.
Your success in illustrating the letter descriptive of your room has inspired me to try my hand at something of the same kind and having no unique furniture of such doubtful use as to require open doors I could think of nothing better than to pictorially open for you the door that you have so often entered and let you know how we are going on in our old sanctum. The [[design?]]

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probably has already written I will just say that [[Shriver?]] wrote home that he had had a great compliment paid to him in the fact that [[?]] took so much notice of his drawing criticising its faults &c.

I have been out skating today and yesterday and the fact of being out and the place and the ice being so like that of a certain memorable occasion when we two went out skating together and came home separately that I could not have helped thinking of you even if I had wished to and I did not want to. it gives me great pleasure in thinking that you are making yourself a good artist as I know you will do - I do not want you to think ([[?]] back to the skating again) that I was in the same fix this time that I had had my second ducking but there were others who had. I had concluded that the ice was getting too weak and had got off when I heard some one say theres somebody in, looking around I saw a man in and another who had hastened to his aid going in in half a minute another was in in the same area then another and then they went down so fast and in such different parts of the park! It was the West Philadelphia Park that I did not keep any more count but came away with the major part of the crowd leaving a few very few skating coolly on the