Page:The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924).pdf/156

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EMILY DICKINSON

come letter. You probably heard that I was alive and well yesterday, unless Mr. E. Dickinson was robbed of a note whose contents were to that effect. But as robbers are not very plenty now-a-days, I will have no forebodings on that score, for the present. How do you get along without me now, and does "it seem any more like a funeral" than it did before your visit to your humble servant in this place? Answer me! I want much to see you all at home, and expect to three weeks from tomorrow if nothing unusual, like a famine or a pestilence, occurs to prevent my going home. I am anticipating much in seeing you on this week Saturday, and you had better not disappoint me! for if you do, I will harness the "furies," and pursue you with "a whip of scorpions," which is even worse, you will find, than the "long oat" which you may remember.... Tell father I am obliged to him much for his offers of pecuniary assistance, but do not need any. We are furnished with an account-book here, and obliged to put down every mill which we spend, and what we spend it for, and show it to Miss Whitman every Saturday; so you perceive your sister is learning accounts in addition to the other branches of her education. I am getting along nicely in my studies, and am happy quite for me. Do write a long letter to

Your affectionate sister
Emily


To Mrs. Strong

Mount Holyoke Seminary
Nov. 6, 1847


My dear A.,—I am really at Mount Holyoke Seminary and this is to be my home for a long year. Your affection-