My dear Fanny

Mrs Selwyn comes on Thursday, the Bishop on Saturday. It will be a very thing if you do go down to enliven Mrs Selwyn on Friday for it has so turned out that this week is the only one when I can go down to see my poor dear old May, so I am going down there from Tuesday till Friday evening or Saturday morning I am not sure which. I am ... continue reading

My dear Anne- Graham and James Yonge went away before we were up this morning, and it would all have seemed like a dream if Duke had not been there at breakfast. Alice Moberly came out in the fly that fetched us, and spent the whole day with mamma; they gave the schools some buns and sugared negus by way of celebration, and I think mamma did very well.

I think we must have made a very ... continue reading

My dear Fanny Yes, I think it is an excellent little paper and shews a good deal more knowledge of Sir Tristrem than I have, inasmuch as I have never got up Modern poems, and it is a good while since I poked in the ancient[.] I have a curious old Italian one printed in Italics called La Tavola Rotonda and with a good deal about Sir Tristram in it - which was bought ... continue reading

My dear Edith It is indeed a great treat to have had a note from you again. I always feel as if my grand setting to rights when you ought to have been resting in peace was one of the drops that assisted in making your bucket overflow Friday seems to me to have been a day that in the rudest health might be felt to be like air to a fish, but how kind the ... continue reading

My dear Marianne Here we are, after having, I think, done very well on our journey. We met Miss Martin on board the steamer. I forget whether I told you that she had begged to come at the same time for the benefit of our escort, and though we had rather have been alone, she was very helpful and pleasant. She is the editor of the Sunday Library, which is the way we fell in with ... continue reading

My dear Marianne-

Here is our last morning here, at least so I hope, for I ended the day yesterday by a collapse, and instead of spending the evening with M. Guizot, had to lie on my back in my room all the evening. However, I am much mended, and hope to be in thorough repair before we start at 12 o’clock. Madame de Witt’s cold was very bad yesterday and she only came out at ... continue reading

My dear Cordelia I shall be very glad to see you and Alethea on Wednesday - tomorrow afternoon if you can come out. I am sorry I can say no more, but Thursday is Mother’s Meeting day. Friday School, Saturday a Sunday School meeting at the Vicarage.

And Miss Walter is so ill that I dare not make arrangements for more than that short afternoon time

your affectionate cousin C M Yonge

My dear Miss Bowles Miss Bourne tells me to write and ask you about a cook who is leaving your mother’s and whom she says you think well of. Perhaps you would tell her about this place. If she is a thoroughly nice person, honest, trustworthy and a Communicant also if she is kindly and good tempered and has a head.

My household consists of only myself, and my invalid friend Miss Walter, who is ... continue reading

Dearest Lizzie- Here am I writing to you out upon the lawn under the pleasant shade of the berberis. There ought to be a nightingale singing, for one lives at the corner, but he is a lazy bird, and year after year always is nearly silent after the first fortnight, though yesterday I not only heard but saw his fellow singing with all his might in a young oak, making his tail and wings quiver.

I had ... continue reading

My dear Helen Mr. Brock brought me in both the telegrams and was very kind. Of course what all knew must be sooner or later could not be a great shock, but all my letters were going with accounts of his having borne the journey so well. It is better for mamma and all of you to have had no lingering, and no associations for the new house. I hope she is keeping ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes Thank you for your kind letter, I suppose there will always be rubs of opinion when three people representing different generations of thought work together if in general principle they accord; and I know I am apt to despise popularity more than perhaps is fair in fellow workers to whom it is more important

As long as there is nothing irreverent tending to ‘Higher Criticism[‘] or to trenching on delicacy I am ... continue reading

My dear Mary I was obliged to let the Guardian go that week before I had really read it, but it must be a mistake for our dear Charles cannot be referred to in Bp Wordsworths Christian Boyhood, as it was published before his death. I know he had a copy full of marks of his own. There is a note in the book about the poet Bowles and the habits at Winchester, and ... continue reading

My dear Augusta It is rather funny that the same post as brought your letter about Lady Blachford’s indignation brought one from an American Correspondent of Gertrude’s saying that she had observed that strict older sisters did generally turn out indulgent Mothers. But I understand it this way. Wilmet had seen that strict laws had not fully answered with Fulbert, Angela or Bernard and the Harewoods were easygoing by nature and also there was ... continue reading

My dear Mr Wither We go on much in the same way, down one day and up another and as it is the same disease as Sir Tom Coulthard had, it will probably linger in the same manner. Today is a cheerful one, and she has had the Holy Communion, for which Henry comes to her after a late Celebration.

Tomorrow, Raby is to come out and see her while I have to be in Winchester ... continue reading

My dear Mary I hope the sheep robbers did not reach the roots of the Corfu iris, and that other plants will recover. You must put in plenty of annuals to repair the damage. I suppose that having workmen about the gates and gaps became infirm, but the maids ought to have seen the enemy. I am afraid in the present state of things, I cannot leave home for though Gertrude is generally ... continue reading

My dear Mary I hope the sheep were expelled sufficiently not to return again, and that these lovely spring days are healing the wounds they left. I went to the Copse today and found the daffodils all but out, and there are many violets in the garden. The excitement of the week was that last Sunday morning Miss Finlaison fell down stairs with a large red glass lamp in her hand, which cut her ... continue reading

My dear Mary I hope your Dynamite explosions will soon cease Are they through Sheepstor or through the wood above Hanover Green[?] Major Woollcombe and I have been mourning over them. He does not think the Auckland people are RCs. You remember one Lord Auckland was Bishop of the I of Man. A RC named Capes, who takes one of the houses on the Winchester Road and the village people say his rough ... continue reading

My dear Mary I hope you accomplished meeting Jane Moore after all, though the hitting off the right time with any Colborne is so difficult, I wonder whether Jane looks as bright and fresh as ever. We are going through a grave time- When the Woollcombes came at the end of April, Gertrude was in the midst of a very bad sick fit, however she began to revive, and they went away on Monday ... continue reading

My dearest Marianne- Raby will have told you that my dear home companion's long patience has ended.

She was really dying ever since last evening, though the end did not come till one o'clock to-day, holding my hand, and asking Henry's prayers all the time till consciousness was gone, not many minutes before the end. I do not think in the relief I feel the difference it will make to me.

Your strawberries were really welcome to me---one ... continue reading

My dear Mary Gertrude’s long patience is over- It has been a sharp morning, ever since 9 o’clock she has been actually dying - Henry came and gave her the Holy Communion at 10 and then she went on whispering for his Prayers and hymns till 1 o’clock always holding my hand when consciousness failed her, and she went about a quarter past. It has been a very dear companionship of 24 years ... continue reading

My dear Mary You will like to know that the funeral is to be on Monday- her 48th birthday. By her own wish, she is to be carried into Church at 8 for the Celebration. Burial at 3. Hymns ‘The King of Love’ and ‘Peace, perfect peace’ her own choice.

Frances is here I wish you could pay me a real visit a little later when the house has been set to rights, but I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Christie

I had just been thinking of you, being reminded of your work by the review of Mrs. Ritchie's book, one which carries one along with it entirely, though I am not sure that her power is not greater in sketches of character in real life than in the construction of stories. Indeed she is too true to nature to satisfy one always with poetical justice, which, after all, one does ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Lennard It shews indeed that it is long since we heard of one another, that you did not know that my dear Gertrude Walter died, on the 20th of last May, after a winter and spring of much increased suffering, nursed by her sisters. You will be interested to hear that she left her stamps to be sold for the Melanesian Mission. Of course they did not bring in what she expected, ... continue reading

My dear Mary, There are very anxious accounts of poor uncle James, the last Kate Low had seemed to think he must give himself up to be an invalid, I think however that the power of bearing confinement often comes with weakness, in those who have been most active – and what a blessing his wife is. What should we have done but for her? I do not like the accounts of Alethea Pode’s ... continue reading

My dear Mary I knew this loss would be one to come home to you especially, so often as you and uncle James have consulted together over illness and so much as he loved and trusted you. It grieves on to look back upon the sad anxious disappointed life it has been, with those strong vehement and always kind and generous aims so seldom successful- at least in that part of his life that I ... continue reading

My dear Christabel What that Ivy did about her questions I cannot conceive, for both Frog and Cricket say they have had none, and yet there are some answers come in from Double Daisy and from nobody else

I have got Frances’s lame sister with me, and she is always pleased to help me by copying, so she has written out the questions for me Will you ask the next? After these that I ... continue reading

My dear Mary Very likely the bill will come out tomorrow, I think Mr Hart may hold his hand now, as the school is in existence. I am not quite sure without asking Mr Layland, but I really think those photographs have raised £20. Yes, dear Anne did send 2/2 every half year for the penny club. It shews how long ago it began that the girl she first took is a ... continue reading

My dear Miss Cassell I find it will be convenient to Goosedom generally and it certainly will be so to its Mother if the answers wait to the end of January, so I have desired Chelsea China to send home a note to that effect. The last answers were unluckily lost in the frost when I sent them off to her, and as she had gone to Hanwell we did not at once discover the loss. ... continue reading

My dear Charlotte I had written one letter to you today when your other came by the second post and I just stopped it. I am writing to Mrs Johns to desire her to put these Carters into communication with you. I believe the Bishop of Victoria is not much of a Churchman. On the whole I think governesses are much more inclined to height than depth in the present day. [[person:2279]Mrs ... continue reading

My dear Mary, How well George Harris seems to be going on. It is a great relief even if it be only a present rally, and rest and summer may do much for him. I hear he is eating oysters and much enjoying them. I hear that the Mr Merton Smith who is coming to Plympton St Mary is an excellent person not a Wantage Curate, but a neighbour. I do not ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Beck Thank you much for your kind invitation. I am sorry to say that Saturday is a day I never can go out as I have Church decoration always more or less on my hands that day. – Poor Gertrude has rather a bad time just now, her leg has been very painful

Yours very sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Marianne, It seems a long time since I have written - in fact Miss Wordsworth hardly let me do anything for talking. I have not taken to a person so much for a great while past; she is so good and so sensible, and, what I was far from expecting, so funny, and her fervent love and devotion to her father are so very charming, and her last evening she made such ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Your Face seems to me very effective, I long to hear more of it. I suppose it will not be like the Face story I heard of, which has a terrible ending. I hope you will go on and get me out of the eerieness it gives me. Thanks for the promise of Handley Mills [sic], I shall be so glad of it, for poor Gertrude’s reading, she is so ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Here are the Answers All to one question! I have read Hanbury Mills once to myself and am now reading it to poor Gertrude who enjoys it exceedingly – I like it very much indeed – there is so much character in the three degrees of refusement, and all the people seem to me very successful- Wilfred and Frank especially & Mrs Bridgewater and Joe. By the by in 108 & ... continue reading

My dear Christabel York and Lancaster Rose has gone- one half to school- and the other has grown too busy, so it resigns, and I have accepted a

Miss Alice Poole Uffington Farrington

She is sister to a governess I like very much –

Hanbury Mills was an immense pleasure to Gertrude. She and Frances have both bought one. I think Linda is true, but as you say, it was not possible to bring her out more. ... continue reading

My dear Miss Palmer I am delighted with both your papers, I did not write before as I wanted to read them aloud to my invalid friend, and we enjoyed them very much. I did not find out that the thundering Legion was coming till the clouds were at the Carpathian mountains.

Una and her knight I like very much too and shall be glad to keep them and put them in I do not see ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Some of the answers are at home, and some have followed me about and I must wait to act Mother Goose till I have got them all together as I hope to do when I get to Tyntesfield the end of next week. I have made acquaintance with Gridiron, whom I found staying at Wantage. She is not so lame as Gertrude but I should think in a far more precarious ... continue reading

My dear Elizabeth

I ought long ago to have written to you though you told me not, I fully meant to have done so, I was so delighted with the book, but we have had a sad time of illness with poor Gertrude She got better for a fortnight, and then came all the old troubles, and now she has another abscess under her knee and I do not think will be up for a ... continue reading

My dear Miss Freeman

The first week in May will suit me very well and I hope we shall be at our best between banksia roses and nightingales. I am afraid however that I really have only room for one and that I must not have the pleasure of having your sister though I am very sorry to be so inhospitable, but when you see our household you will understand. I have a friend ... continue reading

My dear Augusta

I don’t know how it is but there never seems to be room in the Packet. I cannot get in my own Cameos, nor finish up the Three Brides as I meant to have done by two chapters at a time. When I began the York & L Rose I thought both it and Dt Cecil would end at Midsummer, and now I find that they will last on into next ... continue reading

My dear Augusta

Certainly one is grateful to Miss Goodrich for being the cause of a letter. I have had a very long cold, chiefly irritation of the windpipe, which drove me away at last to Salisbury and Rownhams to get rid of it, and now it is nearly gone though I am still obliged to take more care than is convenient in the beginning of Lent. I had some very pleasant days last week ... continue reading

My dear Mary

Thank you much for your letter. It is curious that Mary Woollcombe should have found the report going, but I think no one likes to speak to any of you of gossip concerning any of the family. As to the measure of the loss we do not fathom it yet, it is so mixed up with all sorts of things and people, as I suppose those things are. It is ... continue reading

My dear Mary

A great deal seems to have happened since I wrote to you last, but before I tell you about Oxford, I must come to what is uppermost in my mind, about Julian’s affairs. He fully expected a compromise to have been made which would not have brought such difficulty, but that has failed, and there is the whole debt of the company, about £12,000 come upon the 5 directors – of whom ... continue reading

which he was convicted he has had two years imprisonment & hard labour and to be watched by the police for 5 years more.

The learned say the Easter moon is right at the place which fixes for all the world. It was not full before noon which is the time they count from. You see if the full moon as it is in each place were reckoned some countries would ... continue reading

My dear Mary

I know you will be wishing to know about us, but I am afraid there is nothing very cheering to tell except that I think the worse must have come to the worst. The five banks that were creditors would not take any compromise though they were offered more than Julian’s proper share of the deficit but it seems that by the law each single director can be made responsible for the ... continue reading

My dear Mary,

I did not like to write to you all this time because we were in a a great state of uncertainty. However Julian got a letter yesterday from the ‘liquidator’ to say that the creditors will take £2000 now and £500 six months hence which will cover everything, and is much better than at one time we expected I do think it is a comfort ones fears go too far for ... continue reading

My dear Mary

I hoped to be able to tell you by this time that Julian was quite free and had had his discharge but though the money is paid, the forms take a long time owing to the wearisomeness of lawyers however all the real trouble is over now. I do not think it has every been in any but the Hampshire papers which had a kind little paragraph about a Gentleman much respected

Fancy ... continue reading

My dear Mary

Many thanks for this letter. I suppose the congestion is the great danger now, but youth does so much that I cannot help still hoping and with all the suffering it is not so sad as poor Mr Chamberlayne’s state, for this creeping paralysis has now mastered both arms, so that he can not even point to letters and spell words but he takes food, and his pulse is stronger, and they ... continue reading

Dear Mr Furnivall

You must have my Ns somewhere, for I put them all into their sack and sent them back to you I should think four or five years ago, I know it was just as a friend came to live with me, and I had to make room for her possessions

Yours truly C.M. Yonge

My dear Augusta

It is a long time since I heard of you and almost as long since I heard of Kate, and I am anxious to know how she got on this summer I hope Ernest is quite well after his chicken pox. I went about looking for him at Domum till I met Mrs Morshead and she told me he was gone home. The only Saints day that they did ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns

So many thanks for your kindness in doing me that nice couvre pied. It was just what Miss Walter had been assuring me that the sofa specially wanted for the winter and it brightens us up beautifully I am sure it has not been weather for going about this winter or rather autumn

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Elizabeth

Gertrude has just been observing to me ‘You seem to have fallen in love with that story as you did with Miss Wordsworth’ which I suppose expresses a good deal of the way I have gone about in it. I do think it is a very fine and beautiful story, and I am not sure that there is not more substance in it than in anything the M P has had, ... continue reading

My dear Elizabeth

Lewis or Frank is the question of tragedy & comedy, and I am quite ready to agree to his being the greater conception– though one should certainly have liked Frank the best in real life. I don’t think I know many people who could have done him.

I thought afterwards, should not Gerance in his reformation have gone out to help his father, or at any rate to see about him. He ... continue reading

My dear Elizabeth

I believe (reluctantly) that you are right and that Ebb & Flow is too apposite to the present fashion to bear postponement, I think Macmillan would take such a story as that, and do well by it, I hope to send it off on Monday.

Gertrude thanks much for the paper about the works She has sent off a parcel today Yes, M.Guizot gave me that history of France as it ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

Mr Wilson says that the 12th will suit him best, if we drive over early So will you let me know your train on the 11th and you shall be met at Winchester, I know I shall want to send there. By the by, perhaps I should tell you that Maurice is sent home with chickenpox, and probably the others will have it, but besides the probability that you have had ... continue reading

My dear Florence

I am glad you finished your journey prosperously, and I hope you have brought home a store of strength for the winter and for the trials.

How one sometimes wishes that one's people may never have another worry, and yet I suppose it is all right! I have just lost my most good and wise friend Marianne Dyson. For more than a year she had been in so utterly feeble and broken ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

I never thanked you for your last kind note- The loss out of ones life is very great, though the long weakness and inability to correspond had done much to break the habit of dependance for sympathy & confidence so that one can bear it better than if ‘her sun had gone down while it was yet day’.

I have been making efforts through Mr Awdry to get the Blue Bells taken by ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Elgie

I have a stupid cold in my head. If it gets fine, I will come down at 2, if I see Miss Davies go by in the fly, but I thought she was not coming in rain. If she does come, and the rain goes on I am afraid I must ask her to look in on me on her way, I should not mind the damp or this slight ... continue reading

My dear Florence-

It is a very good story, but I wish it had not been about an election, for I have another election story which I cannot throw over. It is by my poor old friend Fanny Wilbraham, who is so nearly blind that it is a wonder she has written it at all, and it is really very good. It is the conduct of a Cheshire peasant the other day, but she has put ... continue reading

My dear Caroline

Somehow I must write for one can easier do that than say, all that my mind is full of .

It is very very kind of Lady Heathcote to send me that message and of you to think of me. I shall be there at the house on Tuesday - and as it is Gertrude’s Communion day, it will be a fit beginning and will chime with you.

I hope to come over on Thursday, ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

Here is a beginning of Mrs Lyndhurst. I am afraid she is too much in the Aunt Dora style. I think we might do without Sylvia I don’t see anything for her to do. Denys seems to me quite enough, so I send nothing about her, though if needful I could put her in afterwards. Denys may have a calf love for Rachel which may make a man of him. ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

This is all the writing paper I have, being ‘en clôture’, with a pupil teacher, a candidate- and three senior scholars – whom I have to superintend, as Mr Brock is called off to preach at Andover. It must be rather a relief, for his son and heir squalls incessantly day and night, and Gabrielle resents being a dowager at less than 13 months. Well- I was not sure about ... continue reading

Dearest Jay

If you would write to me once a fortnight how delightful it would be for we do let each other drop fearfully, and as long as my poor Gertrude is in her present state I can not go from home unles I can leave Mary Woollcombe here. She is here now, finishing a fortnights stay, during which I have been able to get a few days with the Moberlys. Near as they ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn,

It is very pleasant to hear from you again! Someone ought to collect versions of Father Isams[?] and Sister Katieaia[?] (as she was in my time) Our school children have been seeing [sic] playing at them in Church. I should not have understood but my mother and her half sister had played at it in their childhood without understanding it. A few years ago one of my cousins saw another - a ... continue reading

My dear Mr Wither

It has been a beautiful day Easter day, full Church and 104 Communicants – 50 early and 54 late – not quite so many as last year, but Frances was in bed with neuralgia and Helen is at Arlington. We had scarcely enough primroses for the Church, they are so late this year – but there were plenty of daffodils and it looked very well

No, Mildred Coleridge has not married Adams nor ... continue reading

My dear Mary

Gertrude has brightened up this week but she had an embarras de richesses on Wednesday for Jane Harper, two children, Bella Heathcote Mrs Buston and Emily Dampier all came. She could not see the last two but they are coming on Wednesday afternoon to see her.

We had 104 communicants today - 50 early and 54 late. Frances was neuralgic and could not come out so Maurice was alone. George has grown ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Joyce,

I am sorry to say I must ask you to put off your kind visit till next week.

My sister in law’s brother, Charles Walter, has been killed in Alderney by a fall from his dog cart. He is to be buried on Tuesday, beside his father at Winchester, and the relations will be in and out here to see the poor invalid sister so that I cannot venture to have anyone ... continue reading

My dear Miss Dampier

So many thanks from Gertrude doubly!

You will like to hear that Philip and Margaret Buston walked over here yesterday with some Grapes for Gertrude. They gave a very good account of their mother. There is no house to be had at Twyford, so they are looking for one at Winchester which is wiser, I do not think settling in one’s former parish is ever advisable

Poor Mrs Monroe does not find it ... continue reading

My dear Bella

Gertrude begs me to write and enquire how Mr Walpole is. I am afraid it takes a long time to recover from anything so exhausting as nose bleeding. Our Bishop however seems quite to have done so - he has got happily through this time of hard work at the Diocesan Conference We had a very interesting meeting afterwards at the Deanery about Women’s Work in the Diocese - ... continue reading

My dear Edith

I want to tell the SSW of a lovely book that has been sent to Gertrude by another invalid. It is called 'the Sermon in the Hospital', and can be had from Kegan Paul for 3d or 20s for 25 copies. It is in blank verse and is an extract from a poem by a Mrs Hamilton King, called the Disciples I am sorry to say they were Mazzini's ... continue reading

My dear Mr Moor

Thank you very much. There is one thing more that I want, when you come to the Confirmation, & that is the last SPG report. Subscribing through my friend here, I don’t get it direct I have made a beginning but I go from home for nearly a week after the Confirmation I do not know what to do about the Chandlers Ford children. There really are not many - & when ... continue reading

My dear Nina

Gertrude desires me to say that we have never had an American edition of the Three Brides but she has taken measures for getting a second hand one and it will be sent to you. All my stories in the Monthly Packet do get published again Gertrude is tolerably well just now

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Frances

Thank you for your letter. We don’t deal in squills, but I have just brought in various primroses and violets, though there was hardly a berry for the Church. However the holly leaves are much finer than when the berries have starved them.

Gertrude was tolerable and could enjoy her cards and presents, and shells go on as her great delight at present, that wonderful step-step father of hers has an endless variety of ... continue reading

consciously – in extremity breaks his heart over it and is converted by his failure. I have had my head very full of it. I want to know what you think of the Apples of Sodom, for we have various controversies about it, Christabel thinks the one religious man becoming morbid and accustomed a mistake and likely to promote the popular fancy about good men and clergy, and Miss Bramston says ... continue reading

My dear Mary

Gertrude desires me to say that the little fish arrived quite fresh and were very nice too which I can testify as she sent me two for breakfast. I am sorry you could not go to the Kitley entertainment. I dont [sic] think the tenants can be very badly off at this rate!

We had a very nice confirmation Georgie went up first of the boys. We had 30 altogether, Hursley 2 Ampfield 15. ... continue reading

My dear Bella

I think the day had better be Friday, as Gertrude has been rather out of order these last few days, but is picking up again. It will be a great day of church decoration, but I shall be sure to have done by 4 o’clock, and I shall be very glad to see you and Miss Fawcett.

Yours affectionately C M Yonge

My dear Miss Dampier Do you think you and your sister could manage to come and spend an evening here while Gertrude Walter is staying with me? I do not ask you to dinner because she cannot go down to it and would have much more pleasure if you would drink tea with us – any evening except Saturday the 22nd or Monday or Tuesday the 24th and 25th would suit us, if you will choose ... continue reading