Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/206

assuring you of the tender and sympathetic affection I feel for you, and of the earnest solicitude with which I ever regard you. I take pleasure in communicating the intelligence of my admirable physical condition, and hoping that you will continue to preserve the highest degree of health compatible with your age and arduous duties, I am,

Your affectionate and dutiful daughter,
MARIA STANLEY.

No. 2.

From a young gentleman, who having injured the muscles of the back of his neck by striking them while swimming, on a pane of glass, shaken from the window of a fore-and-aft schooner, by a severe collision with a wagon loaded with stone, which had been upset in a creek, in reply to a cousin by marriage who invites him to invest his savings in a patent machine for the disintegration of mutton suet.

Belleville Hospital, Center Co., O.,
Jan. 12, 1877.

My Respected Cousin: The incoherency of your request with my condition [here state the condition] is so forcibly impressed upon my sentient faculties [enumerate and define the faculties] that I cannot refrain from endeavoring to avoid any hesitancy in making an effort to produce the same or a similar impression upon your perceptive capabilities. With kindest regards for the several members of your household [indicate the members], I am ever,

Your attached relative,

MARTIN JORDAN.