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Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
May 20th [1871?1]

MS Charlotte Mitchell

My dear Edith
I should not think Miss Adams could have any objection to your girl. 2 She has one now whose father is Miss Sturges Bourne’s bailiff, and her mother a ladys maid, the girl is refined and more naturally ladylike looking than any of the others, but the sound is not much superior to yours. I am going from home on Monday for a month but it can all be settled with Miss Adams, and I know she has room. I will prepare her before I go. French comes naturally with her and is not an extra.3

I was thinking of trying to drive over to see you when Miss Seymour told me you were at Malvern.4 I suppose there is no chance of your being back in July, when Margaret Roberts has promised me a visit, and I would try to bring her if she is pretty well. A long drive always seems to me the most perfect way of enjoying a friend, one can talk without the sense of idleness, and with just distraction enough to offer variety if one wants it Indeed I wish, as lookers on and sympathizers can not fail to wish that this serving by standing and waiting were not so very long and weary.5 I still very much hope that force of time will bring more power, as it certainly does with many. Emily Awdry who is the only one of the Moberlys I have seen, says her father has felt this like the closing of cares and anxieties for his children, the thing he had cared to live for was the seeing Selwyn launched.6

If there be anything to write to me about this negotiation you had better direct here, as I shall be changing about a good deal

your affectionate
C M Yonge

1The year 1869 added in pencil in another hand, but it seems likely that the letter refers to Selwyn Moberly's death on 8 April 1871.
2Mary Adams (b.1831/2) ran a small boarding school in Otterbourne with her aunt from 1862.
3As far as this the text has been crossed through in pencil, as if part publication had been contemplated.
4Miss Seymour was probably Edith Jacob’s first cousin, daughter of Rev. George Augustus Seymour (1828/9-1909), Rector of Holy Trinity, Winchester, whose wife Elizabeth Noel (d. 1868), was her aunt.
5John Milton, 'On His Blindness' 14: 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' Edith Jacob was a confirmed invalid.
6The Moberlys' youngest son Selwyn died in 1871.

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/2410/to-edith-sophia-jacob-19

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