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Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Oct 11th [1869 2]

MS Charlotte Mitchell1

My dear Edith
I should think that it was a case for Miss Twining’s Home at 21 New Ormond Street for Incurables, but I believe it is very difficult to get in, as she has only 27, and they are paid for to about half the amount of their cost, though I do not know what the weekly amount is. They also take Incurables at Clewer, for a servant of Mrs Keble’s is there. I think there is a weekly payment, but she was paid for by a lump. I do not know of any other, but I will enquire further about either or both of these, indeed I will write to Miss Twining at once, and desire her to write to you if there is a chance, but I am much afraid there is not, so if you do not hear from her conclude that she is full. I will put the question into the Packet.

Did you see in the paper the sudden death of Lord Manour? He was Miss Mackenzie’s brother in law, the father of her nephew who died in the spring. It leaves the four girls very homeless I fear for their twin brothers are sailor and soldier, and so not fit to make a home for them3

I go on Wednesday to Wm Gibbs’s Esq, Tyntesfield, Bristol to stay a week, then for another week to Miss Dyson at Crookham, and hope to come home on the evening of the 28th I hope you will have rested from your journey before this lovely Indian summer is over, and be able to look at the beauty of the slanting sunlight. I found an orange coloured fungus with a swansdown border (of mildew) that was delightful to see for the wonderful sense of lavish loveliness it gave one. Yes, I could not help telling you of the great piece that has been wrenched out of me with my dear Anne who has been the love of all my life – and the greatest pattern of unselfish devotion I ever knew

yours affectionately
C M Yonge

1Black-edged paper.
2‘1868’ added in pencil in another hand, but the reference to Anne Yonge’s death on 1 September 1869 makes this impossible.
3The four sisters CMY was worried about, Elizabeth, Mary, Helen and Katherine Dundas, were aged between 28 and 19. The twin brothers were born in 1842. In fact the 'girls' lived on in Edinburgh with their younger brothers. Later they seem to have lived in England, where the youngest became a Sister of Mercy.
Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/2348/to-edith-sophia-jacob-18

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