Chapter XXXI: Letter IV

[35 Arlington Street.
May ? 1845.]

My blessed Lizz,...

I shall have done my fresco to-morrow: I shall then have more
than a fortnight to finish my cartoon and sketch. I can’t say how
it looks till dry, but I think it is better than last year. If
it does not dry well, I shall retouch it a great deal. I lay the
plaster myself over-night, and work all next day from five in the
morning till dark, I shall have done it all in fourteen days. I
have hired an alarum that always wakes me at half-past four. I go
to bed at eleven....

God bless you over and over again. How cruel of you never to say
a word about your health!

Your ever affectionate husband,
FORD M. BROWN.