1850 August 30, Peace Dale, to My dear Cousin

              Peace Dale Aug 30th 1850

My dear Cousin

To day as Helen & myself were riding down to the beach I suddenly astonished her by breaching a silence of some minutes & exclaiming in my finest tones that I would write to Clemmie Cope between that time & next morning so here I am at five minutes to nine prepared to inflict four mortal long pages upon thee. And to begin at the beginning has thee fully recovered from the effects of that memorable departure of thine yet? For some days after I felt quite anxious & blamed myself not a little for not having gone up to [?] with thee, which I might have done as well as not, & seen thee safely under Sarah Walkers care & arranged thy baggage for thee. But thee knows how much time there was to think about it, & it never occurred to me until the boat had been off sometime. What thee said at the window we could not make out. I thought thee knew Sarah Walker was on board as that was the first thing I asked Cousin Thomas when we rushed down the wharf, but the expression of thy face told me something was wrong or thee thought so & I did not feel very easy until I heard a day or two after through friend Stokes that thee had got along safely though