Before coming to Carlisle , Uncle Blair Stanley had been a mere name to us . Now he was a personality . His letters to the Story Girl , the pictures and sketches he sent her , her adoring and frequent mention of him , all combined to make him very real to us . We FELT then , what we did not understand till later years , that our grown-up relatives did not altogether admire or approve of Uncle Blair . He belonged to a different world from theirs . They had never known him very intimately or understood him . I realize now that Uncle Blair was a bit of a Bohemian -- a respectable sort of tramp . Had he been a poor man he might have been a more successful artist . But he had a small fortune of his own and , lacking the spur of necessity , or of disquieting ambition , he remained little more than a clever amateur . Once in a while he painted a picture which showed what he could do ; but for the rest , he was satisfied to wander over the world , light-hearted and content . We knew that the Story Girl was thought to resemble him strongly in appearance and temperament , but she had far more fire and intensity and strength of will -- her inheritance from King and Ward . She would never be satisfied as a dabbler ; whatever her future career should be , into it she would throw all her powers of mind and heart and soul . But Uncle Blair could do at least one thing surpassingly well . He could write letters . Such letters ! By contrast , Felix and I were secretly ashamed of father 's epistles . Father could talk well but , as Felix said , he could n't write worth a cent . The letters we had received from him since his arrival in Rio de Janeiro were mere scrawls , telling us to be good boys and not trouble Aunt Janet , incidentally adding that he was well and lonesome . Felix and I were always glad to get his letters , but we never read them aloud to an admiring circle in the orchard . Uncle Blair was spending the summer in Switzerland ; and the letter the Story Girl read to us , among the fair , frail White Ladies of the Walk , where the west wind came now with a sigh , and again with a rush , and then brushed our faces as softly as the down of a thistle , was full of the glamour of mountain-rimmed lakes , and purple chalets , and `` snowy summits old in story . ''
We climbed Mount Blanc , saw the Jungfrau soaring into cloudland , and walked among the gloomy pillars XXXXX Bonnivard 's prison .
as at for from in into of to with worth