You asked me after those three cats. Ah! The dear creatures! Do you know, ever since that night they first came, they have _never left me?_ Isn't it kind of them? Tell Agnes this. She will be interested to hear it. And they _are_ so kind and thoughtful! Do you know, when I had gone out for a walk the other day, they got _all_ my books out of the bookcase, and opened them on the floor, to be ready for me to read. They opened them all at page 50, because they thought that would be a nice useful page to begin at. It was rather unfortunate, though: because they took my bottle of gum, and tried to gum pictures upon the ceiling (which they thought would please me), and by accident they spilt a quantity of it all over the books. So when they were shut up and put by, the leaves all stuck together, and I can never read page 50 again in any of them!
However, they meant it very kindly, so I wasn't angry. I gave them each a spoonful of ink as a treat; but they were ungrateful for that, and made dreadful faces. But, of course, as it was given them as a treat, they had to drink it. One of them has turned black since: it was a white cat to begin with.
Give my love to any children you happen to meet. Also I send two kisses and a half, for you to divide with Agnes, Emily, and Godfrey. Mind you divide them fairly.
The intelligent reader will make a discovery about the first of the two following letters, which Miss Maggie Cunningham, the "child-friend" to whom both were addressed, perhaps did not hit upon at once. Mr. Dodgson wrote these two letters in 1868:--
Dear Maggie,--I found that _the friend, _that the little girl asked me to write to, lived at Ripon, and not at Land's End--a nice sort of place to invite to! It looked rather suspicious to me--and soon after, by dint of incessant inquiries, I found out that _she_ was called Maggie, and lived in a Crescent! Of course I declared, "After that" (the language I used doesn't matter), "I will _not_ address her, that's flat! So do not expect me to flatter."
Well, I hope you will soon see your beloved Pa come back--for consider, should you be quite content with only Jack? Just suppose they made a blunder! (Such things happen now and then.) Really, now, I shouldn't wonder if your "John" came home again, and your father stayed at school! A most awkward thing, no doubt. How would you receive him? You'll say, perhaps, "you'd turn him out." That would answer well, so far as concerns the boy, you know--but consider your Papa, learning lessons in a row of great inky schoolboys! This (though unlikely) might occur: "Haly" would be grieved to miss him (don't mention it to _her_).