My dear Lottie

Many thanks for the Water Soldier who came in excellent order. Fancy Arthur Yonge being like Julian. He was in a very different style in his younger days being very dark and always carrying his chin rather in the air but I think his beard must have made a difference and I know there always is a tendency in us to be more like the Duke Yonges than anyone else. ... continue reading

My dear Mary I am glad you have been keeping the wedding day with Charlotte. I am afraid that the hotel must spoil sitting out of doors except in front of the house. I am writing now in the garden while Blanche Webber, who is here to recover from the remains of the influenza is lying down in her own room. She had it at Easter and does not quite get over the remains, ... 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 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 Jay Thank you very much for the dear little Tom tit. They are great friends of ours, we keep fat for them at the window all the winter and have 4 sorts. Have you ever been to that delicious Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and seen the birds nests ? There is a tom tits’ nest in a post box, where the creature sat through all the letters! I ... continue reading

My dear Hannah Thank you for your kind note. It will be a great pleasure to have Alethea here but she cannot come till October, as the curacy cannot be left and the house has to be put in order. I suppose they will hardly be come by the time you come home. It is too dusty today for almost anything.

Yours affectionately C M Yonge

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 dear Mary Helen and I are sitting outside the summer shelter for its shade She is full of histories of London where they saw everything beautifully in the Park. George – as one of the 14 Rhodesian horse, had no end of honors[sic], the mob tried to kiss their medals (which were not the right ones after all, they get them tomorrow from the Prince at Buckingham Palace) He had to ride ... continue reading

My dear Bea, It must have been the Die and not the seal itself that was hidden in the wall. Lottie Yonge has discovered at the Croft Vertue’s Cromwell seals and medals with Richard’s seal - he is on horseback on one side and in parliament on the other. Also that Timbs in his ‘Abbeys and Castles’ says that ‘Wllm Heathcote Esq found the die and sold it but Sir William Heathcote bought the die. ... 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 I confess that though I mourn over the Manes of the M P I am personally a little relieved, for I was considering what I could honestly personally undertake or allow my name to be used for, in relation first to Truth, secondly in public spirit to the Church and girlhood, and thirdly in justice to kind helpers and endeavours for a fresh start. Helen has been reading the early volumes ... 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 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 C C There is much to rejoice in in that SW line, poppies meandering streams and all, and Oliver was capable of a welcome. Tory disposed of three young mice yesterday (What would the Puritan have done to him?) I thought of sending them to the Eastleigh bazaar tomorrow, but they are still too young - Alethea is come home and had a hayfield party yes on Saturday Her ... continue reading

My dear Lottie- How are you getting on ; I am afraid there is not much change any way and that your hands are full.

I believe Helen is somewhere either in the Bay of Biscay or the Chops of the Channel; she sailed on the 18th, and in a nice cabin with her goldfinches, and after to-morrow I may have a telegram any day to say she is in the Thames.

Christabel talks of coming on the ... continue reading

My dear Alley Mrs Dennis and I counted up and found six babies of Mothers Meeting

Alice Bean Gray Miles Hoskins boy May One other whom I cannot remember.

Now can you tell me what you would like us to do on Christmas day-? Our parties are so many that I want you to say candidly whether it would be too much for you for us to come down, the 3 of us to midday dinner or whether we had not better ... 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

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

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

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 Miss Ingelow

Your letter has just come to me here in the midst of the steep hills and narrow valleys of North Devon. I think I must have been 2 years old when I saw the baby in the blue shawl, as my birthday is in August, and we generally went into Devon in the autumn. I do not think I taught myself to read, as I was then an only child much looked ... continue reading

My dear Mary

Katharine must be glad of the reprieve of her husband’s start, but I hope it is not bad for his appointment. How glad I am you have begun so happily at Yealmpton, but the attendance will not be easy to keep up in the dark cold days-. I have had a very pleasant time between Barrow Court – Martin Gibbs’s place, and Somerleaze. Wrington Hannah More’s parish lies between the two, ... continue reading