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Henry Dec 16 1860

So this is your eighteenth birthday

is it Nina dearest? May it be a very, very

happy one to you my darling, & may the future

realize your brightest and most sanguine an-

ticipations. It is hard for me to picture you to

myself as a grown woman, Nine, although I

know it must be so. As I look at you as you

were when I left home, I try to imagine

the change which two years & a half have made

in the placid half dreamy [countenance?] which

is before me, but I can make no alterations which

please me, & so am fain still to think of you

as you were then, until we meet again next sum--

mer. I wonder if the sun shines as brightly upon

your birthday in Winchester as it does here. I

don't think I ever saw a more beautiful winter day.

The reflection of the sun from our ice & snow clad

river & bluff seems almost to redouble its bril-

liancy, whilst the sky is as clear & the air as

soft and balmy as that of October. For a week

past the weather has been unexceptional , but for

some time before, it was anything but pleasant

I assure you, so you may imagine how much

we have enjoyed the change. I am sorry to hear

you have had so little fine weather in Virginia

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during the past fall & winter. Here it has been as

Mr Foots (I believe) would say, "on the contrary quite

the reverse."