MS Mrs Clare Roels/78
My dear C C
I am glad there are some signs of life or of decay more properly of poor A D I- ! I do think there are more and more signs that a 6d phoenix would be welcomed.1
I find the booksellers make all sorts of excuses for not having got it – The Authors Soc want to see my agreement before advising me. I could not find it easily before I left home and was too hot for a hunt. FMP has written to offer a visit on the 17th or 18th so I have written to her to meet me and come with me on the 18th I have got the MS of Ducks Eggs, I think I can make them much more interesting and longer. We are nice and cool here now, but I think people must suppose that I dispose of all the scholarship money for the begging letters are endless. Anna Bramston has photographed all the tableaux before the break up! Poor George at Kimberley is tormented as nephew to a lion, and was invited to go to a book dance as ‘The Daisy Chain’- pretty well for a great black police officer. So you may tell Walter to prepare to be invited out as Jack a Lantern. Helen returns remembrances. I have had a charming letter from the old Mignonette about Maximilian and the Martinswand- and an Italian palace – quite good enough for an article. 2 The local demon Mr ffinch & co are a great success, he reads the lessons so beautifully that I am quite sorry to miss a fortnight of him. He is warden of a college for ‘decayed gentlewomen’ I should think you would have heard of it.
Maurice and Maude have the funniest little cottage at Fleet, in the middle of purple heath
your affectionate
C M Yonge
Poor Lanty!