My dear Anne, As Sir William Heathcote is coming here this evening I take this opportunity of writing to you, I hope, to thank you beforehand for the letter I am to expect on Saturday. I think your Coronation Festival must have been most splendid, especially the peacocks’ feathers. You must have wanted Duke to help you arrange it all, I think. I know he always used to be famous for arrangements. ... continue reading

My dear Anne, You must not expect a very continuous letter from me as Mary Davys is here but I believe the best chance is to begin a long time beforehand to thank you for your charming long letter which we were delighted to see on coming back from school on Sunday. You said when you were here that we should sit in the drawing room gasping for a drop of water but last Sunday ... continue reading

My dear Alethea I have begun on this great piece of paper because I really have a great deal to say both to you and Anne, but I believe you wrote first, so I make the letter to you. I am very much & sincerely obliged to you for sending me the opinions so frankly, & I really believe the best way of proving it, is to try to defend myself as well as I ... continue reading

My dear Anne

Thanks for your letter, and Mamma’s thanks for Mary’s. I am very glad indeed that you like Amy Herbert though I was sure you would enjoy it, her brother comes here today and I am sure he will be glad to hear of its being such an amusement to aunt Yonge. I am curious to know what you say about certain things I have heard objected to Some people especially ... continue reading

My dear Anne It is very nearly post time and I am afraid I have not time to write a long letter and indeed I do not know how I should for writing to you is a very different thing now from what it was not a month ago does it not seem to you as if it was a year ago that uncle Yonge and Alethea went to Ottery and as if you were quite ... continue reading

My dear Anne How heavily and drearily I wished you a happy year, and how little we thought of the joy that was coming in this morning. It was so strange a contrast to have the London letters full of comfort and delight at the same time as Alethea’s sad one, I cannot say I for one moment thought that Jane would be other than an example to us all what ever might betide her, ... continue reading

My dear Anne Thank you for your letter. I am very sorry you feel so deplorable and still more sorry that our last conversation should have been such as to leave an uncomfortable impression on your mind I am afraid it was all my fault and I am particularly sorry to have talked in such a manner as to make you think I meant to set myself up for an example which was far ... continue reading

My dear Mary, My letters must seem to be very few & far between but sudden revolutions happen now & then, wh disorder my private arrangements, such as yesterday, when I was just seated to write to Alethea & Uncl Wm proposed driving Char: & me to Southampton, & before we came back the visitors were arrived. You will see how much I enjoyed your very long letter presently when I tell you how pleasant ... continue reading

My dear Anne A great many thanks for the news yesterday, and the Barnacles today, if Alethea gives her son the 2nd name of Bargus it would be applicable considering the story of the Gentleman who took up the spoon with the stork crest and said ‘This confirms it, I always thought your name was derived from Barnacle Goose, and now I see it.’ What a capital picture too, and the old gentleman seems so ... continue reading

My dear Anne Many thanks for the further particulars of Tern, I am glad they are allowed to be Arctic. Alethea’s children seem chequered in and out, brown and fair instead of being divided into boy and girl, how very amusing the others must be, I think Edmund must be remarkably clever to be doing lessons, and joining so much in the play of the others. Alethea Mackarness’s daughter came as unexpectedly as Frank ... continue reading

My dear Papa, I feel greatly obliged to you for writing so often. I fear your leisure will decrease rapidly now, that you are able to resume your out of door occupations, to say nothing of all the Confirmation Children, and also such an increase in the colony within doors. I hope you will not find yourself quite overmatched by the half dozen grandchildren, and obliged to retreat to the top of the House, ... continue reading

My dear Anne I must write a word or two before Church. I do not think I dared to expect better than this, and I do hope that at least the suffering is not what it was the day before. It is the Cross at least, and she has been bearing it so in patience and meekness all her days that one thinks of her as one made meet. I am glad that ... continue reading

My dear Mary, It is a great undertaking to describe accurately so great a wedding, a great deal of the details I must reserve until I get home, but I was surprised to find that anything so ponderous cd be passed thro so quietly & easily. Aunt Seaton even seemed in not the least bustle & everything was arranged like magic; I suppose from the number of workmen & the abundance of payment. ... continue reading

My own dear Anne

I don’t know how to write or how to think, it all came in one together for your letter of the 20th had been round to James and then home, and it was a note from Mary Coleridge, written on the 23d that told the reality and the first thing I had opened was a note from poor Johnnie all about his botanical prize and Domum. Oh those boys - one knows ... continue reading

My dear Anne,

A few lines I must write before we go – Your letter this morning told us much more than we had had before but it was so sad yesterday getting both together the letters written in the fluctuations. We shall be only one day’s post away now, and that really induces Mamma to go on to St Dunstans. Otherwise we should like to have staid [sic] in this kind quiet place. Those boys ... continue reading

My dear Anne,

Thank you much and indeed for your letter which told so much that we wanted to know. I had not been able to gather what you had been doing, nor how it had come to you, and now uncle Yonge has written the most beautiful account to Mamma, of the last hours, so that we understand far better the closing in and extinction of hope upon them all. And oh! that beautiful ... continue reading

My dear Anne

I thought perhaps you would let me send you this little locket, as I am sure you must be putting some of the dear hair which you would be keeping. I bought it yesterday in a shop between Cadogan place and St Pauls Knightsbridge, that part of London that seems to have the remembrance of another world so strong upon it. It was very nice going to the cool quiet Church, so ... continue reading

My dear Anne,

How strangely sorrows have thickened on the family. Poor Delia Oldfield, she seems so especially desolate in her helplessness. I am glad Francis Yonge was with her, he must be more able to comfort her than any one else, and now that he has no call to other duties or any other home, he can best be with her. We were at Emsworth barely a month ago, and have certainly liked the General ... continue reading

My dear Duke I felt as if I must write to my uncle yesterday, I hope it was not troubling him when so many must be writing. It seems still like a dream to me, partly from the being so far away that everything must needs look and go on as usual, however much I may see with my mind’s eye how all must be looking at Puslinch and how sad and changed the look out ... continue reading