YACHT "MARIE," SOUTHAMPTON. July 15th, 1901.
Dearest Amy,
Here am I on Jack's yacht, anchored in Southampton waters. The weather is perfect, and I am having a very good time. Jack's mother is on board, and is really devoted to me. I am a lucky girl to have such a sweet mother-in-law in prospective. She is the dearest old lady in the world. The wedding has been decided upon for the last week in September, so I suppose that I shall have to come back to town before very long to see about my trousseau.
There is really nothing so bewildering to anyone who sees it for the first time as the exquisite order and dainty perfection of a yacht in which its owner takes a pride, and can afford to gratify his whim. And this is the case with Jack. The deck shines like polished parquet. The sails and ropes are faultlessly clean, and Jack says that the masts have just been scraped and the funnel repainted. The brass nails and the binnacle are as perfectly in order as if they were costly instruments in an optician's window. There is a small deck cargo of coal in white canvas sacks, with leather straps and handles. And there is the deck-house with its plate-glass windows and velvet fittings and spring-blinds.
Soon after I arrived I went down into the engine-room, where I saw machinery as scrupulously clean as if it were part of some gigantic watch which a grain of dust might throw out of gear. On the deck are delightful P. and O. lounges with their arms doing duty for small tables. All around the wheel and upon the roof of the deck-house, and here and there on stands against the bulwarks, there are ranged in pots, bright red geraniums contrasted with the yellow calceolaria, and the deliriously scented heliotrope. Altogether, everything is charming.
We go delightful trips every day, and it doesn't matter whether there is a favourable wind or not, as Jack's is a steam yacht. We have slept on board except one night when it was rather rough, and then Mrs. Vivian and I stayed at the South Western Hotel.
Altogether I am enjoying myself more than I have ever done in my life. Jack is an angel and adores me, the darling.
Fond love, From your affectionate ROSE.
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