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Dear Gertrude, this brings you my warmest and heartiest wishes for your happiness. And I would I were able to express how glad I am that you are so happy: but I feel like a crabbed old gentleman who is trying to be very gruff, while he is in reality (if you understand the ways of the gentleman), striving not to show how much affected he is. So he gives his paternal jurisdiction, and bids the young people be happy; as the very best thing they can do! 

But indeed, and in desperate seriousness, Gertrude, your letter nearly took my breath away. You see, I was so lamentably unprepared for such a startling announcement. I [strikethrough] did [/strikethrough] expected, indeed, a letter from you, and I opened it with considerable amusement to see how you could manage to escape the penalty of writing "a polite little note". But I did not expect THIS.- I wonder at you, Gertrude, that you should not have broken it more gradually to me, knowing me as you do! for I have always been so particularly and cheerfully unconscious