Here is a page from her letter to her grandmother:

"Oh! my dear Grandmamma, you don't know how happy I am—not being away from those I love, but things are so different. I get up early and after breakfast I help Aunt Susan with the housework, for her maid is too old to go up and down stairs. I have learned to churn—to make butter and pot cheese as well. I dust, make my bed, and sweep my room. (Don't let mother see this. She may consider that I am doing a servant's work).

"I am invited everywhere and lovely people call, but that is because I am the niece of a wealthy woman. And yet people's love for Aunt Susan seems so genuine—not as though they were toadying to her for her money. And Grandmamma, 'Mr. Tom,' as I call him,—Tom Harper—is the finest man I ever met. He is a man—not a man like Harvey Bigelow, mind you,—and people respect him and look up to him. He comes here every other night. He has a buckboard and on Sundays he takes me for long drives. Doesn't he love Aunt Susan though? He told me that there never lived such a good and unselfish woman, and then he told me of all that she had done.

"His brother and he were left orphans without a penny. His father was a clergyman and his mother and Aunt Susan had been friends for years; in fact, he says, 'My mother had been one of Aunt Susan's pupils.' I must have shown surprise for he answered when I said 'What?'—'Yes, before her father died she taught in the High School.' Did you know it, Grandmamma? Well, she did. She's awfully intelligent and now I know the cause of it. Why, she's like a walking dictionary.

"Mr. Tom said that his father and mother died inside of a month, and he and his little brother Fred were left alone. Then brave Aunt Susan, who had loved his parents, came forward and legally adopted them. Think, Grandmamma,—but for her they might have had to go to the Orphan Asylum and wear blue gingham uniforms.

"Then Aunt Susan sent them each to college. Poor Fred contracted typhoid fever and died during his third year. Mr. Tom and Aunt Susan say he was lovely—so gentle and sweet. It is sad to die so young, isn't it? But Mr. Tom graduated from college and studied law with Ex-Judge Green, and if you will believe it, all of the Judge's practice came to him at his death—Judge Green's death I mean—and he told me that he could never repay dear Aunt Susan for her goodness to him and to his brother. It was more than that of a mother, for they were not of her blood.

"I'll close now, for Mr. Tom has come to take me for a long drive.
I hope the girls get in to see you often. What do they think of
Mamma's giving me permission to join Cousin Kate's Camp Fire Girls?
Isn't it great?

"With love and lots of kisses to all,
Your affectionate grandchild,
Ethel."