%images;]> magbell-03910207 Letter from Mabel Hubbard Bell to Alexander Graham Bell, July 5, 1896, with transcript: a machine-readable transcription. The Alexander Graham Bell Collection. Selected and converted. American Memory, Library of Congress.

Washington, DC, 1998.

Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.

For more information about this text and this American Memory collection, refer to accompanying matter.

The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Copyright status not determined; refer to accompanying matter.

The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress makes digitized historical materials available for education and scholarship.

This transcription is intended to have an accuracy of 99.95 percent or greater and is not intended to reproduce the appearance of the original work. The accompanying images provide a facsimile of this work and represent the appearance of the original.

1998/12/21 0004

Letter from Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. Beinn Bhreagh, Victoria County, Cape Breton, N. S. July 5th 1896. My dear Alec:

A few days more and we will have been married nineteen years. Does that not seem a long while? They have been after all very happy years, thanks to your constant goodness to me. I wish I had been a better helpmeet to you, but at least I love you.

It is storming again, and I took this Sunday of all others to go to church in. It was absurd to let a dozen pleasant Sundays pass by and then go on a stormy one, but it was not very cloudy at first and the water so smooth I thought it would be pleasant. But it poured harder and harder and Mrs. Gwillem persuaded me to wait at the rectory and have dinner, which we did only to find afterward that our boatmen had waited for us outside all through the rain.

I suppose you had a fine 4th. We spent ours very quietly only driving with the little McCurdy boys to cranberry pond where they took off their shoes and stockings and danced about on the bog, pulling water flowers. The bog swayed and gave under their weight, but did not let them down below their knees, and even if it had they are good swimmers so I thought they were all right. Then we came home and they and I washed the supper dishes while all the servants went off for a drive. I hear that they hung colored lanterns on the carriage and drove through the town in style celebrating the Fourth. Only Charles by the way is an American.

Now good night. How hard you are working my dear. If I felt I could save you anything I would so gladly be with you, but 0005 2 there is so much to be done here.

Much love to my little girl, tell her to be careful she is neat and on the watch to help others. I shall be so glad to see her.

Ever yours,