MS West Devon Area Record Office Acc No 308
My dear Mary
I am glad Yealmpton has not been kept longer in suspense, it is so hard for a parish to wait long, and I really think it is better for the wife to move at once in the freshness of grief when she scarcely can dwell on the loss of home than to wait till later when she has time to feel it. It must be pleasant for Mrs Warner to move to that pretty parsonage at Yealmpton, from the no house at Brixton and no doubt the parish will take to him better than a stranger.1 You must be relieved not to have the charge of poor Sophy Martyn.2 Sydney will be much less on your mind Helen is gone home to help arrange about a new house, and Alethea and Cecily are a week in London while Henry is at Cromer with his sister We are to have Mr Jackson a clergyman who has been here before tomorrow.
I have Annie Moberly, the Lady Principal of St Hugh’s with me till next Friday and then I shall be alone till the 25th, when Charlotte John Eyre Yonge’s daughter comes, I can hardly tell for how long, for poor thing she has no regular home as her mother and her brother Charles will not let her live with them, though the other two brothers and her sister Lucy are affectionate to her, and so are George and Lucy at Bishopstoke.3 Probably she will stay till Helen comes back, as she is a help to John’s wife with a sick mother.4
Our Church work is finished and is beautiful All looks very autumnal the Virginia creeper turning red very fast. There is a Mr Yonge in California not Stephen, who named his daughter after me, and sent me her photograph though I told him I was no relation, and now she has sent me a whole set of pretty photographs of Sta Barbara in California two of decorated cars for the Carnival, one with 20000 roses, and the other with as many arum lilies.5 We can’t get a Bishop in all the multitude to preach either to us on St Matthews day, or to the GFS conference.
your most affte
C M Yonge