Charlotte, NC
September 9, 1901

Dear Miss Sue,
	Your letter received about a week ago was a great surprise, but a most pleasant one. Please pardon 
me for not obeying my impulse to reply at once. I felt so complimented by the invitation that I wanted 
to write in a day or two, but was prevented by work that had to be done for two of my boys who will leave 
for Chapel Hill tomorrow. I was the guest of your mother and father before I was married and this assurance 
of friendship from her after a lapse of so many years is intensely gratifying and recalls one of the brightest 
periods of my life though not the happiest. It was soon after I became engaged to be married when of course 
the world was full of beauty, and life simply a dream of joy.
	I am thankful to say that with all the trials and responsibilities and sorrows of subsequent years, I 
feel that life is a glorious opportunity, and guided by the star of love has in its later experience a beauty 
and a joy unknown and unrevealed in the flush of youth.
	Please give my love to your mother and thank her for her invitation and tell her that it would afford me 
my great pleasure to visit her home again with its charming sweet and generous hospitalities, but I am so tied 
to home that I have often said I never expect to make another trip until I go to Heaven, and I am neither ready 
nor willing for this one yet.
	Please present to your mother the McAdens' kindest regards for your father's sake as well as her own. 
They were mutual friends by reason of business as well as social relations. I am delighted that sis Bettie has 
this visit to you all in view and hope that nothing will happen to prevent her going again. Thanking you and 
your mother for the invitation and regretting that I must decline,
	                             I remain most cordially yours, Sallie J. McAden*