My dear Caroline I shall like very much to send a pound towards your window; shall I send it to you at once by a post-office order? I hope your diaper will be as beautiful as some of those patterns of the Cologne windows of which we used to have a great sheet, and I always longed to see in glass, thinking that they would be better than bad figures.

Miss Keble's illness was a very bad ... continue reading

My dear Miss Bourne, Our difficulties are so far lessened that the married servant I mentioned once to you can come for a few months to teach both house and kitchen work, so I do not think we shall take a laundress unless some very splendid ready made article should turn up, as we do not want to have too many people about, & hope to keep Mrs Attwood till after June, for the sake of ... continue reading

My dear Cousin, I have received at length from my father a distinct statement of what you have given to the Melanesian Mission. I had heard rumours before, and the Bishop of Wellington had spoken to me of your intentions, but the fact had not been regularly notified to us.

I think I know you too well to say more than this. May God bless you for what you have lent to Him, and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, I like it very much, and am exceedingly ready for some more, much wishing to know Johnny’s fate. Mr and Mrs Arnold are both admirable of their kind, and so is Mary. I am sure her like is often found, as I am afraid Frank’s is too - everybody can remember some dreadful boy before the age of chivalry. We delight too in Sir Hector and his daughter. I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith The end of Aggesden does not at all disappoint me, I think Frank's gradual self conquest beautifully done, and John not at all less charming than at first. Mary is a very good lesson altogether, and very nicely done. And now for the subject of those two troublesome verbs to lie and to lay. I observe you say 'he lay down his head' and 'I must lay down all ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith I hope and trust the tale is safe, I sent it off with the letter on Saturday, in a brown paper cover and a shilling stamp which our post office told me was the sufficient sum. If it be not come, we must write to the General Post Office but I hope to hear it is all right, as I know the book post will sometimes detain a heavy parcel for a ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, I enclose the Greenwich division of Frances. You see necessity drove me into splitting her into smaller fractions than I like, but I could not help it, and I can give you a most notable account of her popularity, everyone is delighted with her, and most especially those who are used to work of her description, which is the very best testimony to her excellent portrait painting. I hope you ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith Here is £8..4 for your kind help in the course of the last half year. I think Frances has been entirely successful. The sole criticism I have heard is that she might have found plenty of misery at the West End - but then as her father was a landowner in the East, I think she had every call thither.

Thank you for your promise of a story for that far ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith Many thanks for your pretty old style story, which has a great sweetness about it, and I shall be very glad to get in when I can. One thing - does it not make a confusion that Isabella calls Mrs Margaret Aunt, and one other - would a lady whose daughter died under 50 speak of her as an old woman? It is not like the lady of 100 ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, I am sorry this came just too late to send to you at home as you wished. It was too late to write and hurry the people at Derby to print it, so I could only wait for the chance of its coming in time. The last thing I heard about it was from the writer of the Cheshire Pilgrims Frances Dysart is delightful. I am glad you ... continue reading

My dear Madam,

I fear you must almost have despaired of receiving the renderings of the names, but we have been so constantly either seeing sights or travelling that this is the first time I have been able to set them down, and now I am afraid they will prove very disappointing, and not too susceptible of illumination - I am afraid names are too often mere adjectives to be very manageable for the purpose. I ... continue reading

That visit was on the whole so delicious, and leaves such a sunny impression on my mind, that it is strange to remember the spots of yearning recollection and the great pang of going away. Not that I was not glad to get back . . .but when one looked back to the last time of parting in the full hope of being together the next year, and remembered that nine ... continue reading

It is nine years since I had been here. . . . All is much the same, and the ways of the house, sounds and sights, walks and church-going, are all unaltered. And there is all the exceeding pleasure of the old terms, the playful half teasing and scolding, and being set down for nonsense, and oh, above all, Uncle Yonge - having more of the father to me than ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith I was on a visit in Devonshire when your note reached me, or I would sooner have written to thank you for telling me of the commencement of the printing of Aggesden Vicarage. I suppose Mr Parker intends to have it out in the ‘publishing season’ at Christmas, and I hope it will progress.

Frances Dysart has given unmitigated satisfaction except by coming to an end, everyone likes and admires her, ... continue reading

Sir, I have much pleasure in acknowledging the safe arrival of your thank offering for the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street. I am this morning forwarding it to the Assistant Secretary Mr S Whitford, 4, Porter Street Leicester Square. I am sure from the particulars I learn from ladies constantly in the habit of visiting there that it is a most valuable and well conducted charity; and that your donation will be well ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith I should say if you made it, his squire, it would do. One says - Oh his squire is Sir Charles or Lord H - meaning that such a relation exists between landowner and parson - though on the other hand the gentleman may not be exactly an Esquire. It is rather a cockney printer’s objection, but there is some sense in it. Sir Hector belongs to the Squirearchy, ... continue reading

My dear Sir, I have to thank you for the pretty tale of the Nut Brown Maids which we are reading with much interest and pleasure.

Some months ago, Miss Roberts, I believe, wrote to you about a tale of the Roman Revolution of 1848 which you rejected. She has since lent me the M S and I am so much struck with it, that I cannot for bear venturing to ask whether it were an account ... continue reading

My dear Caroline I find mamma is answering your questions and leaving me to tell you what I know you will wish to hear about our loss. I do so wish you could have seen our dear little William, with his large dark, soft eyes, and his merry smile, he was such an unusually intelligent and pretty creature, I suppose too much so, as if marked from the first for a brighter home. Somehow I ... continue reading

Messrs Thomas Constable & Co with Compliments to Miss Yonge beg to send her herewith three copies of the new edition of Tom Thumb.[[f Should Miss Yonge require more they will be happy to send a farther supply on hearing from her.

My dear Miss Smith Parker has sent me the two pretty volumes of Aggesden, and very nice they look in print. I hope they will succeed for it is a very pretty story, and I think all it wants is more attention on your part to composition as a study. I do think, if you will allow me to say so, that to make your pretty narratives take thoroughly you should go carefully through ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, If I had not been very busy yesterday I should then have written to welcome your offer of sending me your story to read. We should like to have it very much, but as I shall be from home next week, would you be so kind as not to send it till Christmas Eve? Then I shall hope to begin it on the Monday. I daresay its destination ... continue reading

My dear Maggie I hope you will have a happy Christmas I daresay you have been singing already at Mamma’s doors with all the rest and I think you can begin to keep it as a very happy day.

I send you a green book with some very pretty pictures of Tom Thumb. I think you will like to see him driving his six little white mice and by and by you will be able ... continue reading

My dear Miss Roberts, It is indeed a long time since we have had any communication, though I have been intending to write to you for more weeks past than I like to count - ever since I think, I sent Lincoln Cathedral to be put in type! Then I put it off from day to day, meaning to send you the proof, but at last the article was put in without sufficient notice for me ... continue reading