Mount Edgcumbe ^<1>
Sunday Feb^y 8^th 1846

My dear Henry

I never answered your letter, though I was very much pleased to receive anything so rare. M^r Sotheron ^<2> did talk a great deal about Harrow to Valletort, ^<3> & seemed much pleased with him. We get very good accounts of him, & his Tutor seems to be fond of him. He has got up several places in the under shell since Christmas.

I want to inform you what flowers we have now got in the open air. Here is the list. Snowdrops, Crocuses, primroses yellow & lilac double, violets, polyanthus, [Chimonanthus?] fragans, (w^h has never lost it’s leaves at all,) stocks wallflowers, anemones, pink china roses, & even the delicate yellow kind, narcissus, [petisforum?], & several plants of Carnations! The myrtles are as green as in summer & their flowers in bud – & in the Conservatory, the orange trees covered with bloom.

Goodbye Y^r aff^te
Sister Caroline

Shall I have your Talbotypes of the P^c of Wales ^<4> &c, for my next Waiting on the 24^th? it lasts a fortnight –

for Henry

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Notes:

1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.

2. Thomas Henry Sutton Sotheron Bucknall Estcourt (1801–1876), MP.

3. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4^th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.

4. Edward VII (1841–1910), King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions and emperor of India from 1901. [See Doc. No: 05464].