To Miss Harris.
My own dearest Mary,
Thy beautiful letter arrived duly, and was the greatest joy to me. Thanks and blessings on thee for it! I don’t ever feel it easy, of late years, to say anything except about practical things, but thou knowest how incessantly my thoughts fly back to thee, not only now, but as thou ever wert to me in the old, old days.
I have just finished rough draft of very dull article for Nineteenth Century, also marking map of footpath for Quarter Sessions.
I am sending off Alessandri’s lovely Venetian work to the Arundel, after which I hope to send it to Mary Harrison, and I hope thou wilt see it. I am sure thou wilt delight in the beautiful Doge. He lies before me now, so still and grand.
1893.
Letter to Fellow-Workers.
I came down to breakfast one morning and found on my table a letter from Mrs. Russell Gurney, whom I had not seen for many years, saying she had left to me in her will a block of model dwellings,[[121]] which she and her husband had built years before, but that she would like me to take it now. The gift went right to my heart, and I was delighted. But I asked her to make it a trust, and she kindly consented to let it be added to the trust.
A SOUTHWARK FLOWER SHOW
July 22nd, 1893.