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Utica, December 18, 1852.
Sarah my dear,
I cannot let this year escape without once more using my pen. It is, as you know, more than three months since my last letter was written, how long seems the time! Why did I thus treat my friends and self? for I am the sufferer. Alas! I am ashamed to own that I should thus yield to disappointment. A strange infatuation hung over me, I shrunk from the pen as men do from the leprosy, but I hope the spell is at length broken.
Thank you, my sister, for writing to me, and especially for making your letter short. I should like to have heard more particularly of "the old house at home" and the treasures clustered there, but
Robert is very much in need of those vests which I took home to mend. He says if he does not have them soon he will be obliged to wear his best one every day, this would