Thursday A.M.
Dear Mark,
I have just refused to ask you to lecture or read in a case in which I would have hardly refused anything I could do but that. Mrs. G. F. Davis of Washington St, representing the Orphan Asylum now caught in a pecuniary crisis, is the party I turned away, not without regret and, I confess, considerable compunction. But I have sworn ‸not‸ to let my personal relations to you be utilized in that way. I had to do it in self defense, and in decency.
BUT, if this most excellent lady gets at you through any other channel, I advise you to grant her at least an audience. I almost wish I had excepted orphans when I made my vow.
There is no trick in this note i.e I did not tell Mrs Davis I would write it.
I shall be vastly grieved to miss dear Howells’ visit if he is here over Monday. I am going out of town.
To Father Hawley’s funeral, now, with a sorrowful heart. How glad you must be, how very glad to think of the comfort you gave him. To-day it is worth to you ten thousand times more than all the trouble it cost.
Yours aff
Joe
