My dear Mary St Paul has brought us nice brisk weather, I hope it is not too cold for you, but it is pleasant to have it clean. We have had the excitement of hearing that Capt Cromie has been transferred to Algeciras in Spain, close to Gibraltar, so Frances comes home with the whole family in March and will not miss the wedding - I do not know much more for the letters were ... continue reading

My dear Lottie I put off writing till the 19th was over, for it really was a very interesting day, though I little knew beforehand all they were going to make of it. About £1800 was collected for the scholarship, and this was presented, with a beautifully illuminated address, by the Bishop in the High School, making a wonderful speech about having read the Little Duke when he was a small boy, and all that ... 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 Mr Coleridge I send you a Post Office order for £2 which is all I can very well do for this most melancholy case, as just before Christmas is not the time for my galleons to come in. If you will send me another paper, I will forward it to some of the Gibbses who might perhaps be able to do something for the poor family. I do not know of any one else ... 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 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

Dear Mr Wodehouse

I shall be delighted to see another story of Miss Gordon’s. I am in hopes that her icelandic one will appear in the Packet in February or March, and indeed I was thinking of writing to ask where she was that I might send her the proofs, it is indeed a long time since we have met, and as my brother and sister have gone out and left us their cavalry, we are ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith I did not write yesterday as I had to go to Winchester, and besides my sister in law had not quite finished reading the M S. The part about Horace’s marriage I do like, and the softening, but I am very sorry you adhere to the early part - especially his father’s repeated wishes for his death. If you could only hear the horror of my mother and my sister in law ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan My London plans have dwindled down to the smallest span - i.e. - to running up for a day with my sister in law on Wednesday the 25th. I hope to call at 16 Bedford St somewhere between 12 and ½ past 4.

Would you send me a line to say whether I shall find you, and if one time is more convenient than another. Please write by Mondays post as I shall have ... continue reading

My dear Child, I am sorry to say that my dearest wife is unable to write you a little Christmas greeting as she had hoped, and as you simply have earned by your better than best behaviour in writing to her so regularly, for which we can never love and thank you enough. I wish I could say that she is at all better, but her breathing and palpitations become, I fear, more and more troublesome, ... continue reading

My dear Miss Sewell, I ought to have answered you long ago that I am very glad that you are as Hampshire people say 'tackling' that beginning of mine

I suppose Carter’s history was the other authority for Hereward that I proposed, I have however a great mind for Thierry, as the place where I fell in love with him first. Perhaps I had better send you the book, or shall I translate it, I think I ... continue reading

My dear Duke Thank you for your very kind letter, which has been a great pleasure to me and will be so to think of. Though every one of our friends is so kind one’s own people that all one’s life is mixed up with are so much more to one. I think that the expectation of the Consecration must have been exciting Mamma more than we knew for weeks before, she so often fancied ... continue reading

My dear Marianne Things have gone on well and quietly; I only wonder what I am that I seem to have no breakdown in me, but cannot help feeling for ever that the ‘Ephphatha is sung’when I think of the frowning look with which she would try to make us understand her, and that struggle to say words of praise, ‘glorify’ so often coming. You cannot think how her work, the illuminated ‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’ and ... continue reading

My dear Caroline It did indeed seem to be bringing sorrow upon sorrow when that account came of your dear father, and one recollected all that he was to us in 1854, and indeed ever since, and the accounts since have been a great cheer. It is strange that scarcely any of our own specially near and dear friends who were round us fourteen years ago were either left or at hand, Dr. Moberly even out ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, Thank you for your kind, warm hearted letter. I know you too know what a great grief is, and how close one clings to the last surviving parent, and the sense of being still a child at home. May you long preserve that blessing.

I should be very lonely but that my brother and his wife are only a garden’s length from me, and most kind, and just at present I have a ... 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- The day went in this way yesterday---towards eleven o’clock there was a bell, and we all went down and wandered in the garden till everybody was assembled, then we went to M. Guizot’s study and had prayers, he reading a chapter of St. Matthew, and Mme. de Witt making a short prayer of it, ending with the Lord’s Prayer. Then came the post and breakfast, upon rissoles, fried potatoes, fruit and vin ordinaire, ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- Yesterday was so rainy that there really is very little to say about it. The breakfast was enlivened by our being told that Madame Adelaide always had a set of bonbons placed beside the seat of each member of her brother’s cabinet whenever they met, and that they were of a superior quality or not according as to whether she liked the ministry or not. M. Guizot said he had the experience of ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- This last day will be a very quiet one, for M. de Witt is gone to a horse-fair at Falaise, and Julian, Frances and Miss Martin are gone with him, starting at eight this morning, and coming home at eleven at night; unluckily I could not go, and Mme. de Witt caught a bad cold yesterday and I fear will not be good for much to-day. Caen had to be given up because ... 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 Mary My thoughts have verily been with you, waking and going to bed, and at that twelve o’clock, when I could see the place and almost hear the bell and think of you all. It is a great comfort to hear of Uncle Yonge’s peace and resignation, and to read his letters so thoroughly himself in all ways. I am always thinking of those words over James’s and Charles’s tablet, and how blessed and ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns, I should be much obliged if you would propose me as a member of the Literary and Scientific Society. My sister in law would like her eldest girl to attend the classes if they take place, especially the Natural history ones. I suppose the details of management have yet to be settled and perhaps you will then let me know whether we had better subscribe not only for her, but also for ... continue reading

My dear Frances, Uncle Yonge did not go today. I am sorry to say he has quite got a cold. Helen is very well and bright – Here is a curiosity by way of a German announcement of a betrothal

Your affect Sister C M Yonge

My dear Mary I remember Charles Archer at Winchester and he once or twice called on me. Harward and Fulbert must be nearly the only ones left except Mrs Tolcher. I think Fulbert was a little while at Winchester. I sent you my idea of the insulted sufferer on a card yesterday I thought at first of Zechariah the son of Jehoiader, but that did not quite to suit and I do ... continue reading

My dear Helen Thank you for the £8, which I found safely on coming home from hearing the first day of the diocesan conference.

Poor old Graf, it is not every dog who is buried by the parish clerk, with me walking in solemn procession of one all down the walk behind. I am glad you were spared the catastrophe, and that mamma has Koko to divert her mind. I am afraid [[person:201]Mr. ... continue reading

My dear Frances We buried the poor old fellow with all honours. Charles wheeled down the barrow, I followed, and we put him where his predecessors are, coming on two of their coffins before we found the right place. Poor old fellow, he loved his own way, and it was well for all that he should not grown old.

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

after a bad passage. Frances and Helen both spend Christmas at the Vicarage, but one must go back when Maurice’s short holiday is over –

Henry’s old uncle, a Canon of Chichester has left him £1000

Dear Madam I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your cheque.

I think that as your money is invested & producing interest you may as well wait until a short time before 1 April & then give your Bankers instructions to sell sufficient to produce £1000, so that it may be ready a day or two before the 1st

I am yours faithy Chas Wooldridge

Miss Yonge

Dear Madam I have received all the documents from the Insurance Company & also the policy on Mrs Yonge’s life. As I presume the £1000 is still due to you from Mrs Yonge shall you wish to have the policy transferred into your name so as to afford you a security for the amount of any interest or premiums you have paid, or how would you like to have this arranged.

I am yours faithy Chas Wooldridge

Miss ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge I am afraid I am very ignorant about the term of the loan of the £1000. I cannot say I ever expect Mrs Yonge to pay it back to me. She does not even know that I have paid it off.

If I discontinue the payment for insuring her life, will the future payment of £1000 on her death lapse.

Or if I continue it, or my heirs (for I can hardly expect ... continue reading

Dear Madam If you discontinue the payment of the annual premium on the life policy, it will drop altogether & no sum whatever will be received if Mrs. Yonge were to die. If you decide on this course, the best plan will be to wait until the latter part of next October for the surrender of the policy to the office. They will pay you about £100 for it. If on the other ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge, I think it will be wise to keep up the insurance on Mrs Yonge’s life. The only further question is whether it should be mentioned in my will that the payment should be continued, and to whom the amount should be paid.

On this I will write to Mr Houseman who made my will.

I enclose the cheque for the insurance understanding that it covers all the houses here and in London

Yours truly C M ... continue reading

Dear Madam Judging from your former letter that you do not expect Mrs. Yonge to pay for the £1000 I think it will be best to have the policy transferred to you. For that purpose it will be necessary that Mrs. Yonge should sign the transfer. Will you kindly write to her & explain this & say that she may expect to hear from me. I have duly recd the cheque for £1.15. ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge

Mrs Yonge comes to Otterbourne Vicarage this afternoon, and will be in the village till some day next week. I think you had better send the papers to me, as I am not certain whether she will be at the Vicarage or the Grange, and I will get her signature

Please pay the 4/ and add to your account

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Madam I enclose the deed for Mrs. Yonge’s signature in one place only where you will see her name written in pencil. This signature should be made in the presence of a witness who will sign where shewn adding address & occupation, a householder is best, but a servant will do. You must not, of course, be the witness. Please leave the date blank & return me the deed as soon ... continue reading

Dear Madam I expect to receive the Policy from the Norwich Union Office in a day or two & will then forward it to Mrs. Yonge as you wish. You know of course that at the present time the Policy is absolutely your property & stands in your name with the Company

I am yours faithy Chas Wooldridge

Miss Yonge Lady Seaton’s Beechwood Devon

My dear Madam I sent you the Policy on Saturday & I hope by this time you have received it The Policy now is transferred to Miss Yonge she being entitled to it having paid the £1000 & I believe all the interest & premiums, however as she wished me to send it to you I did so. I understood from Miss Yonge that she had certain intentions with regard to the Policy, but ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge

My brother told me that he had arranged all the Insurance with you, so I never imagined that it did not include this house. I suppose it was only the freehold property. This house belongs to Magdalen College I do not know at all what it is worth, as I only pay £3 a year for it under the Copyhold. I suppose it might be about £800, the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wooldridge You have the deed of gift executed from my brother to me of Hicks’s cottage therefore there can be no doubt that it is my property and he certainly told me that he meant to make it over to me but he never seems to have told any one here, and Hicks has been paying rent to him and Mrs Yonge ever since.

The accounts have been so mixed with repairs for cottages that ... 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 C C It was for Monthly Packet articles that I extracted the payment, and the stock of the books that were my personal property were handed over to Macmillan. This offer from the family must be for the actual sales that had taken place since there was an account; but these agents did not try to explain it, so I can only ‘take the goods the gods provide me’ if they do for ... continue reading

My dear C C Thank you for Crispin I was glad of him for we are feeding Alethea with light literature, she having broken down, with nothing the matter but a course of overwork after the influenza- first the children’s measles, then going to Holmwood to lodgings with the children, no nursery maid, and the lady nurse not looking after her, or doing nursery maid’s work and then a good deal to do at ... continue reading

My dear Mary I have been meaning to write for some days, but they have managed to be full, and now I hope you have good accounts of Dorothea and the little maid, and that Charlotte has a happy nursing.

Poor Alethea has quite broken down, with really nothing the matter with her, but she has had no proper rest all this year First the influenza, then all the children’s measles then going to the ... continue reading

My dear Mary I wonder whether Charlotte had a foggy, snowy voyage yesterday? With us the day was very fine, the frosty road so clean and clear and this morning all was white but later it turned to drizzling rain and muddy roads , down which I puddled to the last nursing lecture, and saw instruction given on making a poultice among other things The numbers of people had been 29, but today there were ... continue reading

My dear C C I wonder whether you are snowed up There were six inches of snow outside the verandah this morning and the untrodden snow is a beautiful sight as long as one has not to tread it, and is not gasping for the newspaper. I hope it is keeping the daffodils safe under it for you. Two days ago, I gathered some snow drops, and saw the noses of some of the ... continue reading

My dear Mary I hope Sydney is as much better as I am, I believe I should be well if the East wind would mitigate itself, but we had showers of snow yesterday, and more looks possible today. Helen has been so good as to come down and look after me as her mother has Mrs Mansfield (Georgina Halliday) staying with her Her husband is an army doctor, and ordered out – and ... continue reading

My dear Mary That letter came to me with a request that I would forward it to Mr Arthur Yonge whom the writer had met 7 years before in New Zealand, by which I concluded he did not mean Arthur in America and I thought it would just meet him with you, but probably it will find him in time. Poor Annie Woollcombe, the deaths from illness seem sadder than those in battle, and yet ... continue reading

My dear C C I hope the change will be a success. I did not know there had to be so long an interval, I do not remember it here, but as it was between old friends there might have been some arrangement. Wells Gardiner will not reprint ‘Forget me not’. I wonder whether I ought to try SPCK, they took Mary Bramston’s FL story last year - I don’t think Macmillan ... continue reading

My dear C C So you are to have a new Bishop, I am glad Lord Salisbury is there to have the choosing of him. Our elections have gone off quietly, and our neighbour of Cranbury is at the head of the poll at Southampton. Winchester is not settled yet, but for the county no one opposes old Mr Beach, who I believe is the father of the House The Mallocks are ... continue reading

My dear Mary I came home from Salisbury yesterday afternoon, and tried to answer your note, but could not finish. I will keep your card and see if I can give the case a vote.

I am going to stay with Frances next week from Monday to Saturday

Your affectionate C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik I see you are advertising Highways and Byways in Spain. I should be much obliged if I might have a copy as my Sister in law and her daughters are at Algeciras, where the husband of one is Vice Consul. I am expecting the elder one to return before the end of the month, and the book would be much enjoyed by us together.

I am glad Modern Broods is doing well. ... 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 Miss Bourne Gertrude is very thankful for the snowdrops and much pleased. Yes, Frances is still about, and at this moment I have Florence Wilford here, she has been nearly killed with nursing the two old ladies at St Cross, and is here now collecting a little strength, I hope, I do not quite know for how long. I seem to have all visiting disorganized this year, and now some evening Wednesday ... 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 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 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 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

All thanks for your letter, I think matters are looking better and that something less than £2000 will clear it all, but we cannot be sure till after the 24th, at any rate Julian is in much better spirits about it. Maurice must have gone to school any way, so that is the least part of the trouble, and I do not think Anne Parnell much to be regretted for she had ... 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 Mrs Harrison Thank you so much for my God daughter’s photograph. Alas! I have been a very bad Godmother to her, never having a chance to come in her way, but I go so little from home and when I do, it is always to my own people in Devon.

I have not been to London even for three years! Unluckily I just missed Mrs Bland when she was staying with the Bakers at Winchester. ... 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 Hannah Helen has returned from her wanderings, of course having caught cold by the way, but it is just going off. Could you come over to tea, either on Saturday, Monday or Tuesday - and see her. Frances and the little boys start on the 21st of April

Yours affectionately, C M Yonge