Hello there, and welcome to this episode of Down to Sleep, the podcast of softly spoken

stories to help you get a good night's rest. There's a new episode every Monday on Spotify

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So thank you. Let's go ahead and tuck you in and take a nice deep breath because tonight

we're continuing with Dracula. We start from where we left off. Jonathan Harker's journal has

ended and we begin with Chapter 5. A letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra

on the 9th of May.

My dearest Lucy, forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work.

The life of an assistant school mistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together

freely, and build our castles in the air. I've been working very hard lately, because I want to

keep up with Jonathan's studies. I've been practicing shorthand very assidiously. When we are married, I shall be able to be useful

to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough, I can take down what he wants to say in this way

and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand,

and he's keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I'm with you, I shall keep a diary

in the same way. I don't mean one of those two pages to the week with Sunday squeezed in a corner diaries, but a sort of journal,

which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest

to other people, but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan someday, if there is in it anything worth sharing.

But it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do.

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