MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life 261-2

My dear Marianne

I heard this morning that good old Mr. Gibbs is gone – on Friday night – his flowers fresh in our church. We had a very successful day, and no doubt Amélie has told you about it¹, the Confirmation afterwards, thirty-five of our children, the girls led off by Helen, Amy, and Gerty and six of the school-girls with such sweet solemn faces, and a Cranbury man who had been baptized on Easter Sunday.² Afterwards fifty-four mothers had tea in the school, and Mr. Ashwell made them a capital speech about what depended on them. So many are my own old girls. One woman is one of seven sisters, and there are and have been twenty-five already at school of the second generation of that family. A good number were communicants next day. I had a feast of talk with Mr. Ashwell, but imagine his materials for the Bishop’s life – he never destroyed a letter!³ He spoke highly of your godson, and enthusiastically of his wife. Well, I think you will get on well with your young Vicar, and I am sure you will like his mother; I never heard any one find a fault with her.⁴ No time for more.

Your most affectionate
C. M. Yonge