our _shoes_ on Christmas morning; such dinings
and suppings, and musical parties! You must know every
one sings here, the servants go singing about the house
like nightingales, or sweeter than nightingales to my
mind, like our dear "Kanarien Vogel."

You ask for Joe, he is very patient, and kind and good
to us all, he and John are capital friends; and oh, Edith,
it would do your heart good to see how John devotes himself
to the poor fellow. He waits upon him like a servant,
but it is all _love_ service. Joe can scarcely bear him out
of his sight. Herr Franks was asked the other day, by
a gentleman who came to sup with us, if they were brothers.
John watches all Joe's looks, and is so careful
that nothing may be said to wound him, or to remind
him of his great affliction more than needs be. It was a
beautiful sight on New Year's Eve to see Joe's boxes
that he has carved. He has become very clever at that
work, and there was an article of his carving for every
one, but the best was for Emilie, and she _deserted_ it.
Oh, how he loves Emilie! If he is beginning to feel in
one of his old cross moods, he says that Emilie's face, or
Emilie's voice disperses it all, and well it may; Emilie
has sweetened sourer tempers than Joe White's.

But now comes a sorrowful part of my letter. Joe is
very unwell, he has a cough, (he was never strong you
know,) and the doctor says he is very much afraid his
lungs are diseased. He certainly gets thinner and
weaker, and he said to me to-day what I must tell you.
He spoke of his longings to travel (to go to Australia was
always his fancy.) "And now, Fred," he said, "I never
think of going _there_, I am thinking of a longer journey
_still_." "A longer journey, Joe!" I said, "Well, you have
got the travelling mania on you yet, I see." He looked
so sad, that I said, "What do you mean Joe?" He
replied, "Fred, I think nothing of journeys and voyages
in this world now. I am thinking of a pilgrimage to the
land where all our wandering's will have an end. I
longed, oh Fred, you know how I longed to go to foreign
lands, but I long now as I never longed before to go to
_Heaven_." I begged him not to talk of dying, but he said
it did not make him low spirited. Emilie and he talked
of it often. Ah Edith! that boy is more fit for heaven
than any of us who a year or two ago thought him
scarcely fit to be our compan