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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.