MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life 316-7
My dear Florence
The constituent parts of the New Barnacle don’t come in fast, but I know there are a few more to come for vol. xvii. If enough do come in to be worth binding, I think I must leave it in your charge. I send you what I have already come in for it, and please keep it to see whether there comes enough in addition to use. If there does, I will write about it.
If you go away before we come home, please leave the papers with Katie Johns to keep for me. I wish we could have come to see you, but it was quite impossible the day we went to the Johnses, and if we had, our old white horse would have dropped down very ill at your door instead of deferring it to ours. So it was lucky for all parties that we did not stop. She is better.
Oh, if you could have seen a little pretty chit march into this room as upright as a dart, and as much at ease as – I don’t know what, a creature about fifteen, who proceeded to shake hands with me. ‘Good morning, Miss Yonge, I’m an American, I came to thank you for your books.’ And presently, ‘I came to thank you for writing so much for the Church. We value that so much in America.’ I assure you she did it like the U. S. personified!
Direct to me (with my Christian name) at Puslinch, Yealmton.1
Your affectionate
C. M. Yonge