My dear Mrs Johns,

We are much obliged for your kindness, and if things - weather included turn out well - I hope to bring the Cricket and her sister in time for a four o’clock tea with you on Monday. I am afraid we cannot do more, as after that it gets so late and cold for an open carriage. Our basket only holds three so that my mother - though thanking you for your ... continue reading

My dear Christabel Photography must certainly turn you into a most pensive mood. You are a great contrast to the solid jolly damsel in the old Gosling book. Your Ridge is very good. I will send it round with the answers, but as yet I have had no answers but Cricket and Lady bird, and the Turks cap has been so ill used that she has had neither questions answers nor Barnacle, this time – so ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns, I suppose you are enjoying a Christmas rest, indeed I almost expect to hear that Mr Johns is spending his holiday on a visit to Katie. The business of my note is however to tell Katie or ask you to be so kind as to tell her, that we are having a great revolution in the state of goosedom. Some goslings having grown lazy and some outgrown it, there is to be ... continue reading

My dear Christabel I send you the Barnacle. I had thought of keeping it for May, but as she does not come till the 6th, it would be too long. After all the sheets of the Caged Lion have got bound up wrong by my fault, for I forgot to number the pages. I have now numbered them and put a notice that the reader must manage accordingly The difficulty in keeping always the same order ... continue reading

Cackle Mother Goose having gone out on her broomstick she has had to delay the answers. They are not many in number this time, for Chelsea China’s popularity and Windermere’s Wars of the Roses are decidedly the superior articles. Cricket is the next to ask the questions.

Mignonette and Sparrow Hawk retire

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 Christabel Yes, the Coral islands and King René will do very well, but really the Goslings are so long that I do not think they are worth keeping up. Cricket and Double daisy are the only ones who have sent answers and that only to Henry VIII , I thought Ulysses might have been so entertaining but I believe nobody that does not live with a public library ever has books enough. ... continue reading

My dear Christabel I have my doubts whether you are not in the right and Goosedom has had its day. I do not think that now I have no one to read and discuss the answers with I do my part with the same spirit and effectiveness, and there are not enough Goslings acquainted with each other to keep the thing up with animation. Gaggles used [to] do something, but there has been no ... continue reading

My dear Christabel The Goslings will not die. I find we had better kill the useless members, and get some quite young ones in keeping the questions easier- We have now left only Cricket, Frog, Double Daisy and Pixie to whom is to be added

The Honble Alethea Colborne, Beechwood Plympton

I am not sure what she is to be called - Can you still be Secretary even if you have no time for the Questions? ... continue reading