When you read this I shall have passed away, so that I need not be hampered now by that reserve which I feel has grown upon me through a long and self-contained life.

Your mother was very dear to me.

As you know, she was twenty years younger than her youngest brother, who was two years younger than me.

So we were all young men when she was a baby, and, I need not say, a pet amongst us--almost like our own child to each of us, as well as our sister.
You knew her sweetness and high quality, so I need say nothing of these; but I should like you to understand that she was very dear to me.

When she and your father came to know and love each other I was far away, opening up a new branch of business in the interior of China, and it was not for several months that I got home news.