"If it's a boy, call him John (after the Evangelist); and if it's a girl, call her Glory." At the end of the first year she wrote: "I have shortened our darling, and you never saw anything so lovely! Oh, the sweetness of her little bare arms, and her neck, and her little round shoulders! You know she's red -- I've really got a red one -- a curly red one! Such big beaming eyes, too! And then her mouth, and her chin, and her tiny red toes! I don't know how you can live without seeing her!" Near the end of the fourth year he sent his last answer: "Dear Wife -- This separation is bitter; but God has willed it, and we must not forget that the probabilities are that we may pass our lives apart."

Author Biography

Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853 - 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British novelist, dramatist, short story writer, poet and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Caine's popularity during his lifetime was unprecedented. Writing fifteen novels, he became an international literary celebrity, selling ten million books. Caine was the most highly paid novelist of his day. The Eternal City is the first novel to sell over a million copies worldwide. In addition to his books, Caine is the author of more than a dozen plays and was one of the most commercially successful dramatists of his time; many were West End and Broadway productions.