19 Anerley Park
London
Sunday 24 November 1889
Dear Chris
Thank you very much for your letter. I don’t think I deserve one as I have never written to you yet. I am not quite as old as you expect me to be. I will be fourteen on the fourth of December.
We are going to have a party and we have just been making a list of the girls and boys. There will not be many, twenty I think.
Mamma bought Dottie a stage the other day and a play called “The Silver Palace”. It was rather silly so she bought “Aladdin”, and we are painting and cutting out the scenes and figures. It is a much nicer one than the other.
“Aladdin” is going to be the pantomime at the Crystal Palace. The story is very nice, and so ought the pantomime to be, for they have a very large stage and a very good company – it is from the Arabian Nights.
I should like to see Alex cook the dinner. He will be able to cook for us when he comes home. I am very glad you are coming home soon. I don’t remember you very well. I suppose you don’t remember Essil at all. When you came home last she was only two or three years old. I hope you stay a good long time when you do come.
I don’t think there is much to see in Anerley except the Palace – there is plenty to see in that, though it is not half as nice as I expected it to be.
Mary, Essil and I go to a high school, kept by Mtr & Mrs Sonenschein. They are two Germans, and they have their school a very funny way. Mr Sonenschein has written a good many arithmetic books on some system, it is much easier to learn than the other arithmetic. They teach German too. I have been learning nearly a year. They have the school made out of three houses – one for the kindergarten, one for the junior, and one for the seniors. Mary and I are between the junior and the senior schools.
When Archie was at home he bought a large boat for the boys – more than three feet long. It is very heavy and they can only just carry it if one takes one end and the other the other end. Archie sailed it with them once or twice, and we had a boat and followed it all up and down the lake. We sailed it at the Crystal Palace.
Good bye.
Believe me, Your loving Sister
Coral.