1

[written in pencil, in square brackets, top left]
Miss Florence B. King
c/o Mr. Charles Picot
Philadelphia, Pa.

[top right]
1^st June 1852

My own beloved Florence

I doubt much this letter finding you
in Philadelphia - as in my last letter I requested you if
possible to leave No 15 before M^r Picot took his departure
for France. I have written to your Aunt Mary today on the
subject of your remaining at least for a while under her
care. Oh! my own dear Flora it does seem as if the sick-
-ness on this place is never to be done. Poor Sukey died this
morning. Liddy & Linda are yet in a very precarious
state. I have great dread lest the death of their mother
will have a serious effect on them. We attribute poor
Sukeys [sic] death to her grief for Mily. She seemed to bear
Emolines [sic] death as well as we could expect, but when
Mily died she seemed plunged into a state of apathy
from which nothing could rouse her, on Saturday her
fever returned & we could do nothing to save her. We were
thrown into great alarm on Tuesday last by a singu-
-lar turn in Franks [sic] case. D^r Wilson had prescribed
for Frank then he was 4 days under D^r Dunham
& considered by him as well as by Cousin A. and M^r Woolly [sic]
to be out of danger. When all at once he began to bleed from
the inner part of his cheeks — his gums — black spots appear-
-ed all over his body - William Couper pronounced
it to be "ship fever". We had him carried into the old
cotton barn — and as Pussy had been his nurse all along
she had to go there too. We sent for D^r Wilson — who nev-
er came until one oclock that night — & greatly re-