"I should and I do thank you for my happy day- like a warm warm sun suddenly falling through clouds. Thank you, dear Marjorie. How good you are. So good..."

"How good of you and how wrong of you. It is a lovely jumper and a lovely color. I ought to scold you for giving me such a gift, but I haven't the heart, I liked it so much and I'm so overwhelmed by your kindness..."

"This should have been a letter for the New Year, but all sorts of mostly small troubles fell on me, and now that the sky is more or less clear again I find I am exhausted..."

"You must try to forgive me for so shamefully collapsing on you last night- that I was physically down and out is no excuse. You can only forgive me- or not..."

"What a generous warm letter you have written me- I feel at once humble and happy. The damned postman has come so late I can only catch the Saturday post if I run like a hare to the postbox..."

"I ran to the post- which I think I caught, but the postman never shifts the numbers- with a nearly illegible scrawl. I am sorry that the two days you could come should be the two days Bill has proposed to have himself driven [...] here..."

"I have drawn a line, a happy line, across Friday 31st, and Monday and Tuesday September 3 and 4, and I'll be very happy indeed whenever you come. (Observe the change of pen- I laid the first one down..."

"Thank you for a purely happy day, thank you for giving it to me, thank you for all you are, and all your kindness. My thanks are so deep and so useless that I would grieve..."

"My American friend came alone, and has just left, to go back to Derby by bus (as she came). I am exhausted, but I am very sorry for her- as you would be if you had seen her..."

"Forgive a typed letter. For some inexplicable reason, when I'm at a certain stage of exhaustion, I can type much more easily than I can hold a pen. I've had two other problems to deal with..."