with the 7th division - We have had a great deal of slight illness here, my cook is just up again from influenza, and a great many people in the village have been having it, nonetheless there were 110 Communicants yesterday, 40 of them at 6.30- We dined at one at the Vicarage all the children now being old enough to be there, the little one, Joan is such a good ... 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 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 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

Dear Mrs Drew, I am almost certain that the Little Duke and the Lances of Lynwood are published in chapter form for school children’s reading and our schoolmistress told us she had seen Kenneth advertised as abridged for School reading - I know Arnold wrote to me for permission and I told him he might use it, if he could arrange with Parker of Oxford, who published it when I knew nothing of arrangements. Macmillan has ... 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 Does not your paper want something more of practical application, not that I quite see how it is to be done. Maud and Lily are capitally described, but the upshot is that a nice girl does not like to be mixed up with them- also that mothers should be exhorted to keep girls nice – and mistresses to take care whom they take.

Would be possible to bring it more to a ... 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