Sunday Oct. 31st
My dear Henry
Thank you for a half £30– cheque received this morning – and will you thank Lady Elisabeth <1> for a bill & receipt from her which has also reached me in safety this morning! – I am glad to hear a good report of your health in such a short letter as this. ‘We are pretty well’ would please & content me any day when you have no time for more. – I have at last met those old friends of our family Mrs Howard & her sister Miss James – The former embraced me tenderly & declared she remembered me perfectly, though I could not have been more than 2 years old at that time.
I am to drink tea with them on Tuesday. – And am I not gay! – I propose on Wed to be present at an evening Lecture on Polarised Light illustrated by numerous experiments on Light & Colour by means of the Hydro-oxygen Polariscope – The lecture to be delivered by the Messrs Keovil who will conclude the entertainment by exhibiting their Diorama on dissolving views – which I have been told are so pretty by those who have seen the same kind of exhibition at the Polytechnic. – I mean to promote Price <2> into a Companion for the occasion of the lecture even being close by at the Royal Hotel, is quite handy for us –
Your affectionate
Constance –
Doctor & Mrs Allanby have paid me a visit, introducing themselves as friends of my Sisters <3> as well as of the family at Moreton. <4> – Perhaps he wishes for a little of our Custom if any of us should happen to fall sick –
Matilda’s <5> sweet kiss & love to Papa – and sends him a bit of sea weed –
Notes:
1. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
2. Mrs Sarah Henneman, first m Price ( ca.1811–1848), housemaid at Lacock Abbey.
3. Laura Mundy (1805–1842); Marian Gilder, née Mundy (1806 – 14 October 1860); m. 6 August 1844 William Troward Gilder (d. 1871), Army Surgeon (ret).; WHFT’s sisters-in-law.
4. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family.
5. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.