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Key West, Florida, Nov. 17, 1898. My dear Helen and Wanda, It's very hot here and I feel a little dull and sleepy. mostly
from scant allowance of sleep. The night before last there was a fashionable ball at the hotel and the music was horrid loud
and kept me awake till 3 in the morning, when they played Sweet Home and went to it. Then yesterday we hired a sloop and sailed
over the blue water to the Marquesas Keys for palms, 2 new species, and my weren't the palms exuberant and the sand fleas
and mosquitoes and fiddler-crabs, also. We got back against a head wind about 11 o'clock, pretty tired. We saw lots of birds
and fishes and flowers. The palms and mangroves are all twined and tangled with flowery vines and it was a hot job and a prickly
job getting through them. The color of the water was charming--green and blue and purple and bronze brown and gold. We go
back to Miami tonight on steamer, thence across to the West Coast by rail, thence back to Jacksonville, thence home by New
Orleans. I'm glad I'm turning homeward at last, though I'll miss Sargent. Love to Mamma and Maggie and the very darlings.
Soon I'll see you. Goodbye once more. Sargent is in a hurry. 62 02505