Abbotsbury ^<1>
23 Dec^r 1849

My dear Henry

Will you give or forward the enclosed to Horatia ^<2> whose present habitat is unknown Are you going to Pau after all – you are too late to avoid the winter for it has set in with more than usual spite A few days ago I could have told you wonders of the garden now all or most is in the dust.

We have however still a good many Paper & other Narcissus, Yellow Oxalis, Lithospermum, Gibraltar candytuft – & a few double pink early Camellias – also Iris scorpioides & A. ^<3> arisarum.

I was going to Christmas at Moreton ^<4> but am put off unavoidably – the Mundys ^<5> are there & I am sorry to miss them.

Y^r Aff
W F S

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Notes:

1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.

2. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.

3. Arum.

4. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family.

5. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law; and her husband, William Mundy (1801-1877), politician.