'I am better now, and very grateful do I feel for the restoration of
tolerable health; but, as if there was always to be some affliction,
papa, who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter, is ailing
with his spring attack of bronchitis. I earnestly trust it may pass
over in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto
shown itself.
'Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract. Tell
your papa my father was seventy at the time he underwent an
operation; he was most reluctant to try the experiment--could not
believe that at his age and with his want of robust strength it would
succeed. I was obliged to be very decided in the matter and to act
entirely on my own responsibility. Nearly six years have now elapsed
since the cataract was extracted (it was not merely depressed). He
has never once, during that time, regretted the step, and a day
seldom passes that he does not express gratitude and pleasure at the
restoration of that inestimable privilege of vision whose loss he
once knew.
'I hope the next tidings you hear of your brother Charles will be
satisfactory for his parents' and sisters' sake as well as his own.
Your poor mamma has had many successive trials, and her uncomplaining
resignation seems to offer us all an example worthy to be followed.
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