Sent on a sweltering June day in 1909, this hand-colored real-estate marvel shows the palatial H. L. Pierce estate in Leominster — an extraordinary Romanesque Revival mansion crowned with burnt-orange onion domes and surrounded by sweeping manicured grounds, its winding carriage drive lending a sense of aristocratic grandeur rare in central Massachusetts. The reverse carries a breathless message from a writer identified only as a friend: she tells Ethel that Leominster has just been rocked by "a murder & suicide" on Saturday night and "a man drowned yesterday," apologizing for her "few lines of scribbling" and blaming "terrible headaches." The card traveled with a one-cent Franklin stamp from Leominster to Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada — a transatlantic domestic crossing that adds remarkable postal interest. The detail image reveals a secondary outbuilding, likely a greenhouse or carriage house, on the estate grounds, numbered 210,206 in the publisher's series (V. & Sons).