“I am myself convinced of fairies — have been all my life, but the best photograph I have ever seen is undoubtedly yours,” Mr. Gardner wrote. The subject is quite an important one and you would be doing us all a considerable service if you could get further photographs of a similar kind of the various varieties. I will most willingly assist in every way possible. . . . Many of us wish to learn more about this delightful side of life and if you can help I shall be immensely grateful. Will you think of it and let me know? It was Elsie’s mother who wrote Mr. Gardner back. She could have explained that Elsie was a terrible speller who hardly ever wrote letters. But Elsie’s mother was nice enough not to. Instead, she said that she was writing for her daughter because Elsie was sick: “She says I must thank you ever so many times, indeed it was very kind of you, but she does not know if she can take any more,” Elsie’s mother wrote. The little niece of mine from South Africa, the one on the picture [h]as gone away.
