1When I think of your affection for your brother's daughter, softer even than a mother's tenderness, I realise that I must tell you first what came last, so that joy, felt in advance, may leave no room for anxiety. 1Though I fear that even after your rejoicing you may return to fear, and be glad that she has been freed from danger in such a way that you shudder at the same time that she was in danger. 2Now cheerful, now restored to herself and to me, she is beginning to recover, and to measure by her convalescence the crisis she has come through. 2She was in fact in the gravest danger — may I be allowed to have said it with impunity — though through no fault of her own, but somewhat through that of her age.
2Hence the miscarriage and the sad experience of a pregnancy unrecognised. 3So although it has not fallen to you to console your longing for your lost brother with a grandson or granddaughter of his, remember nevertheless that this has been postponed rather than denied, since she from whom it can be hoped for is safe. 3At the same time excuse the mishap to your father, who is readier to pardon where women are concerned. 3Farewell.