MS Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas. C. R. Coleridge Collection
My dear Fanny,
You and Emily have exactly the memory that may be called kind – Many thanks to you for the very pretty little snow tip butterflies, which are of a species highly to be commended. I hope shortly to wear them into Devonshire where I believe we are going next month – I think the present visitors at the Vicarage are decidedly wholesome, being the brother and sister but I dread the chance of Queen Emma, and I fear it must have been a great grief that Mrs W B Heathcote has romanized fancying her husband would have done the same, but no doubt led away by Lady Herbert.1 I don’t think she ever was a wise person though she was pulled up by her husband while he lived. Dr. & Mrs. Moberly drank tea with us last night, and read us a delightful description of the travellers moonlight view of the Steinbach. I think she would have quite recovered if the damp days did not throw her back constantly. What dreadful things do happen! Poor Mr Hudson was a neighbor of the Peter Youngs’ and we met him there last year.2 I never saw any one so full of life and spirit, and to them he was like a brother. He leaves a young wife and two little children. Do you know of any idiot asylum to which parish relief is not a bar, we have a little boy here who cannot go to Earlswood because he has had relief since his fathers death?
Love to Emily
Your most affectionate
C M Yonge