And now about myself,--immediately. I have come here all alone. Since I last saw you in New York I have not had altogether a good time. I have had a great struggle and have been thrown on my own resources and have been all alone. Very cruel things have been said of me. You heard cruel things said, but I presume them to have been said to you with reference to my late husband. Since that they have been said to others with reference to you. I have not now come, as my countrymen do generally, backed with a trunk full of introductions and with scores of friends ready to receive me. It was necessary to me that I should see you and hear my fate,--and here I am. I appeal to you to release me in some degree from the misery of my solitude. You know,--no one so well,--that my nature is social and that I am not given to be melancholy. Let us be cheerful together, as we once were, if it be only for a day. Let me see you as I used to see you, and let me be seen as I used to be seen.

And now about myself. I have come here all alone. Since I last saw you in New York I have not had a good time. I have had a great struggle and have been thrown on my own resources. Very cruel things have been said of me - some of them with reference to you. I have no friends here ready to receive me. I needed to see you and hear my fate - and I appeal to you to release me from the misery of my solitude. You know that I am not usually melancholy. Let us be cheerful together, as we once were, if only for a day.
