1 fag of tramping up to
Loughnavalley for me. It is
dear and good of you but
I hope you won’t be putt-
ing yourself about on my account. Y
ou must be getting to be a
great walker when you can
do that walk every day without
being tired. How is the poor
ankle getting on? I suppose well
or you wouldn't be able to
walk so well. Give my
love to all and with
fondest and most enduring
love to my dearest
and best girl

Always your loving & devoted
James 39 Belgrave Square,
Rathmines,
Dublin.

1st April 1916 My dearest darling May,
I hadn’t the least
expectation of getting a letter from
you and so I was all the more delighted
to have it. I guessed the last few days
that you probably had to do your own post-
and for that reason I didn’t think you’d
write yesterday. I know very well it is awfully
good of you to write to me so often and I
had it on the tip of my pen to say so yesterday
but I was interrupted as I am very frequently
and forgot it afterwards. About the
race if it is a choice for me between seeing 2 you at the races and seeing you in town
I prefer the latter of course but I was hoping
that I might have both pleasures. If however
I can only have one of the two, I plump for
you coming up for a few days rather than
seeing you for an hour or two in a crowd
at Mullingar. I have been talking the matter
over with my mother and she will leave it
to yourself when you come up. Nora and
Moll will probably be going away this
day week for about three weeks and will
be back shortly after Easter and perhaps
you would like to have either of them here
at the time. They would be useful to you
if you were buying things or anything of
that sort and besides you will probably get
tired of my dull company after a while and might like for a change to have someone
younger than my mother to speak to. It
will be an awful disappointment to me not
to be able to see you until Easter if you
decide not to come up before then but I
suppose it can’t be helped. I hope your
mother won’t be vexed at me for dragging
you away from home during the spring hurry. I’m
sure you’ll all be very busy now for the
next couple of months for things look now as if the
spring was at last starting in earnest. The last
few days have been perfect here and today is
like a Summer day. Hadn’t I the devil’s own
luck not to go down this weekend instead of
last. It would have been so pleasant to be
rambling about with my own dear girl, but I
can’t complain even so for I had her all
to myself in the house if I couldn’t go outside 3 and what more could I want. In any case
I expect to have a lovely time at Easter when
I shall probably be free for at least a week
and of course I’m burning for it to be here now.
I hope you will be extra sweet and nice and
good to me then and if you do I’ll bring you
an extra large Easter egg so now be a “dood
ittle dirl” and you’ll see what you’ll get. I’m
afraid I have no pleasant news of any sort to
tell you. My chief, Gallagher, is going off to
London on Monday morning and although he pressed
me again to accompany him I declined so your
poor little man is safe for the present. I don’t envy
him his job especially as they have had another
Zeppelin raid in England and in any case he will
have a lot of very troublesome and exacting work to
get through which I know very well without blowing
horns that I could handle better myself as I am
much more familiar with the particular job being
dealt with. I don’t expect a letter tomorrow so
I hope, love, that you won’t give yourself the