Sir I waited until I should have received the photographs to thank you for them. Most of them are beautiful impressions, that of the Hen and Chickens is superior to the copy in my possession, and I am extremely obliged for the kind manner in which you have sent them

your obt servt C M Yonge

My dear Miss Butler Many thanks for your last kind letter which I fear you will not think I requite well with halving the present chapter, but it is an unusually long one, and has a good resting place in it, and I am anxious to put in a whole paper on the Colyseum, which has much interest in it. I have no doubt you will manage to make Aunt Theresa satisfactorily personal and not ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, I condole with you on the loss of your chicken and hope the other will not follow it at the critical moment of putting out the wing feathers. I am afraid the Empress has no such good amusement, and probably the Imperial prince is much too grand a personage for her to be allowed to touch him. I never read anything more absurd than the account of his 144 garments of ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler I must thank you for the motto, I have a certain liking for Götz partly for Sir W Scott’s sake I believe omission /or rather deferring is better than mincing after all, but it is hard to manage to fit all into 80 pages, where the grave, the useful and the gay must each have a fair share, and the dull gets put off & put off till our deferred correspondent ... continue reading

Madam, I delayed to thank you for your M S, till I had had time to read it. It is a very well told story, and I shall have great pleasure in inserting it in an early number of the ensuing volume, either in July or August. The only criticism I should make, is that the boys are rather too old, even at that date, for a schoolroom tea, especially Johnnie, if he had ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler Many thanks for the chapter of Likes and Dislikes, which brings out Emilys moral very satisfactorily. I should not like it to be the absolute last, and should quite wish to continue her history after an interval. How would it be - if we were to continue the story next July year - if we may venture to look so far forward, and if it do not suit you better ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler Many thanks for Chapter XV which is very lively and promising, and in itself is all that the Packet could wish, though of course I know it is but a single brick of the house which you have not yet built. It amused us exceedingly, and your writing is so easy to read that it is as pleasant as having a chapter of some printed book sent to us. Shall ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler I was going to return this long ago, but I wanted to hear from Mr Mozley whether he could conveniently print the remaining chapters to the end, and he has vouchsafed me no answer, so I mean to wait long enough to give him time to set his types free of the forthcoming number, and then send the whole with a request to have it done at once. I had been making ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler

Mr Mozley shall have a jog, but I think the time you fix is nearly the natural one. There will be rather a crowd in the December number as I had to put off a long beautiful story till I could get it in whole, and those old notes on Roumelia must be finished off with the year, so I am afraid of more than a note on the Ursulines (What ... continue reading

My dear Miss Bourne To answer while the observations are fresh. 1. Lord Ormersfield was meant to be courteous & respectful with his aunt, but undemonstrative, and I cannot fancy him saying ‘Aunt’ - though he would talk of my aunt.

2. Mrs Frost was a woman who went by feeling, and only disposed to work for her son, & bask in his presence.

3. Louisa’s health was so broken that no one expected her to survive her ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of writing to tell you how much your Thorns and Roses have already elicited of admiration. One of my best contributors (the School Sketches) has written this morning ‘you must let me say how much charmed I & all here are with the beautiful tale, Thorns &c Is it a secret absolutely whose authorship it is, or is it permissible to ask whether ... continue reading

My dear Madam I enclose a draft for 8.12. 6. with many thanks both to you and your sister. I was not aware of her marriage, so that congratulations would now lag sadly behind. My School Sketches friend Miss Emily Taylor, the author of that pretty little book ‘the Boy and the Birds’ is the person so anxious to know your name; she is - as perhaps you know - actively engaged in ... continue reading

My dear Madam When I wrote my first letter, I must have been under some hallucination that 52 shillings was £2 2. instead of £2.12. but I am glad the mistake was there instead of in the cheque. Your pretty Household Record came safely this morning, and I have read nearly to the end with much pleasure. I think I like it better than Wishop though not quite so well as the [[otherbook:253]Thorns and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler I enclose with the Packet’s warm thanks the pay for Likes & Dislikes. I am so glad to think of the continuation for I think the notion of setting Emily to tame young ladies running to seed an excellent one.

Miss Sturges Bourne has just been conducting a sick cousin to Wiesbaden, and thinking with much diversion of Helen. She was near going to Marienbad itself which would have been amusing. ... continue reading

My dear Madam Many thanks for Wishop, which looks much improved by the omissions.

The M P was Sir William Heathcote MP for Oxford, perhaps you will even better like to hear that Mr Keble could not help listening to the Thorns and Roses with great interest in the middle of his work. I have put out the beginning of Wishop for March, but I cannot make sure of it, as there is a short story ... continue reading