They bemoan their aches and pains
and cheer each other up as though they were all little Theo's age.
"Passed a most tedious night," writes Mrs. Burr, and adds that she has
bought a pound of green tea for two dollars! And--"Ten thousand loves.
_Toujours la votre_ Theodosia."
Burr writes that he has felt indisposed, but is better, thanks to a
draught "composed of laudanum, nitre and other savoury drugs." When
their letters do not arrive promptly they are in despair. "Stage after
stage without a line!" complains Theodosia the mother, in one
feverishly incoherent note. And Theodosia the daughter, even at nine
years old, had her part in this correspondence.
Her father writes her that from the writing on her last envelope, he
thought the letter must come from some "great fat fellow"! He advises
her to write a little smaller, and says he loves to hear from her.
Then he whimsically reproaches her for not saying a word about his
last letter to her, nor answering a single one of his questions:
"That is not kind--it is scarcely civil!"
When little Theodosia was eleven her mother died, and henceforward she
was her father's housekeeper and dearest companion.
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