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Sunday Feb 12. [[pencil]] 1888 [[/pencil]]

After break.

First Paris letter came yesterday.  You poor frozen young females!  We shiver & hug ourselves sympathetically when we think of you in that icy room, stopping chinks & chimney in the effort to get warm with a little charcoal.  Better be careful about that charcoal, too, - because when people die that way it's not at all becoming, - color is horrid, so I'm told.  Somehow it seems [[crossed out text]] more difficult for me to see you in Paris with my mind's eye, & settled in the Rue Boccador, & meeting the Austins & all that, - than it was to land you at Antwerp & trot around there with you.  Now about our first letters - I was so thoroughly sure that you were going on that Holland trip & coming back to Antwerp for your trunks en route for Paris, that I had no hesitation in sending our first mad [[maid]] to Antwerp by the Bremen stmr [[steamer]] of the Wednesday after you sailed, - & that is when & where they went, care Messrs. H. Albert de Bary & Co., - & if you haven't rec.d them yet, you must write to those Messrs. to forward them, because we are dreadfully "tried" (as Aunt Sally says) that you didn't get first what was written first, - & the boys' letters too!  & Etta's!  Just see what trouble comes of a woman's changing her mind!  I believe that Pesky Oscar had something to do with it.  I shall not attempt to answer anything in your letters, - shall leave that to the ladies & confine myself to conveying useful information, & moral & mental tomes - those things usually are bitter to the taste, aren't they? - , with a spice of gossip occasionally to sweeten them.

Transcription Notes:
Messrs. = Messieurs