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Milo June 12th 1847

My Dear Joseph I do feel dissatisfied and rather unhappy about Lucy, going back she is there can be no doubt of it in consumption - it may be incipient or it may be not - your Father call'd himself well (and me believ'd it till a short time before his death - but it was proved that he was far gone in consumption many months before - we must all die and if we are prepar'd tis not so much matter when but still it is a duty to try to preserve health and life I agree with "common sense & the Doctor that it is perfectly plain that she cannot have the chance to get well there that she can here - and if something be not done soon to restore her health she must soon bid adieu the Earth - does Ann do any of us feel willing to have it so, without an effort to prevent it - I am aware that it would be very bad for Ann's school to have her leave but she can get someone to assist or how would it do for her and Lizzie Doe to enter into partnership if their schools were morer together and they had a house large enough I should think it might do well - Circumstances were such that I did not say a great deal against L, going back I thought the ride might do her good - but she must come back - every day that she goes into school or sits at her sewing renders it more improbably that she will ever recover her health - Now cannot you or Eliab come up with her in 2 or 3 weeks at farthest I tremble almost when I think of her staying so long. The good fresh air, the fragrance of the clover fields & by and by the new mown grass the good rich new milk and the perfect freedom of thought look, life and limb - how can she forego and suffer the tight dress and the inevitable constraint necessarily consequent upon her present situation. I suppose that she and Ann are thinking that perhaps it will