MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life, 272
My dear Marianne,
It seems a long time since I have written – in fact Miss Wordsworth hardly let me do anything for talking. I have not taken to a person so much for a great while past; she is so good and so sensible, and, what I was far from expecting, so funny, and her fervent love and devotion to her father are so very charming, and her last evening she made such a sweet outpour of her Bild worship of him, and her happy home, which has never had a sorrow on it in thirty-two years, and I suppose she took to me, for she ended by saying she never thought she could get to love anyone so much in four days. She carried off lots of wild flowers to the Westminster Hospital. Wednesday we dressed the church for Ascension Day, when, as evening church was late, we had time for a most exquisite drive through Hursley and Ampfield, all the oak woods being the most marvellous colours of gold and red, and yesterday we went to St. Cross. So I hear Stephen Lovelock is to take care of the Elgee pony. Miss Poole and I read Sintram up to his storm to-day, but as Gertrude does two pages a day at Storringham she will beat us.1 She comes here the very day I come home from you, and Miss Roberts on the Monday after.
Your affectionate
C. M. Y.