Page 3: Alas! Perhaps I am producing an army of American Catherine de Bourghs! You would be welcome here. We can always use help at the school. You and I have something significant in common; I think you know this. I do not just mean our common attachment : I mean our high spirits, our drive toward happiness. It has taken us different places, but though both of our paths have caused us some pain, they have also, I must believe, forged some resilience as well. I wished for your sake that Wickham’s temperament might have been tamed by time and your love. The fact that it was not, until his last breath, is something I hope frees you from grief’s shackles all the sooner. Kitty’s painting improves every day, and every day I think it an impossibility. It is dreadful she must do her work under an assumed