MS Eton College, 2ALS to ATR
Dear Mrs Ritchie
How kind in you to write me such a pleasant letter. I like to know that the companions of my life have been beloved by other people. I had actually begun for my own pleasure another link in the Daisy Chain for the Monthly Packet but it was decided that it would weary the public.1
I am much enjoying your recollections. I hope you have a great many more still to come.
I was sorry this morning to find that the so called ‘Sara Tytler’ is in so much need of a pension. Mr Besant is sending round a petition for her.2 It seems strange that she should never have been able to make more than a £162 a year, when everyone knew her name, and her books are always wholesome and often clever, though in awkward language.
But publishers are inscrutable! I have just seen a MSS full of ability, and by a practised hand rejected by the publisher of Pretty Miss Smith where the uncle of an heiress tries to drive her out of her mind by letting owls loose in her bed room at night
However, I did not mean to write so much shop, only to say that if you are in these parts I should be delighted to see you and I am generally at home
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge