text:  But it is never an easy task to decipher a woman's meaning particularly when not addicted to penmanship; and although my excellent wife had attended a penman's instructions and had acquired the reputation in her native place of being an accomplished clerk still since her marriage she had applied her genius to the making of tarts and other confections rather than to the parts of scholarship and it was difficult for me to make out the significance of her epistle in its whole extent