Make Fred toe the mark while I'm not there to look after you, but remember he's a good sort just the same; I was an awful fool ever to advise you not to stick to him, he's worth a dozen of his cousin. Tell Molly she'll have to do some practising to come up to the way some of the girls on this ship play, but I believe she's got more talent than all of them put together, if she'll only work hard enough to develop it. There's going to be an _extra_ good time to-night, as it's the last one, and I'm looking forward to dancing my heels off. Love to you all, especially mother, and tell her I haven't seen a doughnut since I left home.
I got here last night, and found the cable from father saying that the cattle and Dutch Peter had reached New York all right, and that he had met them there. I know you'll like Peter, and I hope we can keep him indefinitely, though I only hired him to take the cows over, and stay until those Holstein aristocrats were properly acclimated to the Homestead. I'm glad they've got there. And, gosh! I'm glad I've got _here!_ I realize I've been a pretty poor correspondent, sending just picture post-cards, and now and then a note to mother, but, you see, I've crowded every minute so darned full, and then I've never had much practice. So before I start out to "do" Paris, I'll practice a little on you.
I landed at Rotterdam, had twenty-four hours there with Emily and Arthur Brown--that brother and sister I met on shipboard--then we separated, they going to Antwerp, and I heading straight for The Hague to present Sylvia's letter of introduction to Mr. Little, the American Minister, shaking in my shoes, and cold perspiration running down my back, of course. But I needn't "have shook and sweat," as our friend Mrs. Elliott says, for he was expecting me and was kindness itself. He found an interpreter to go through the farming district with me, and then he invited me to come and stay at his house for a few days before I started for the interior. He has a son about my age, who I imagine has suffered from the same form of heart disease with which you are afflicted at present, as he seemed to be somewhat affected every time Sylvia's name was mentioned; and a daughter Flora, an awfully friendly, jolly, pink-and-white creature. Fortunately she informed me promptly that she was engaged to a fellow in Paris, or I might have got heart disease, too. They kept me on the jump every minute--sight-seeing and parties, and excursions of all sorts, and one night we went to see a play of Shakespeare's, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," given in Dutch. (I find that all Continentals admire him immensely, and give frequent performances of his works.) Get out our old copy and re-read it some rainy day; you're probably rusty on it, same as I was, but it's an interesting tale, and there's a song in it that can't help appealing to you. Here's the first verse: