28 April 1888
My dear Chris
Thank you very much for your letter and also for the photos. They are very good – you have grown older looking young man as I suppose one should expect. I will see that the girls get one each. I have sent Mary one and Jean who is at home has another.
I note your remark about the boys’ education and the writing and bookkeeping and they are studying both. They will very soon have to go to a boys’ school as they are getting beyond Miss Shand.
Noel is getting such a great big boy he is very tall for his age and is also broad and well made. Reggie is a sturdy boy also. He will be ten years old tomorrow. We are all getting on are we not?
Jean I believe is to be married either in August or September. She and Mr Tasman are on the lookout for a house and it is very amusing to hear Jean on that subject also discussing the price of furniture and how much she can manage on a week.
Mr Northey came to see me about ten days ago. He hopes to have the Sobraon this year and indeed telegraphed to your father at the Cape to know if he was really going to resign, and your father has replied yes. So I suppose this is his last trip in reality. They got to the Cape on 12 April. Mr Northey has just been married to a Miss Steel. He asked very kindly after you and was anxious to hear how you were getting on. I read one or two of your letters to him at which he was very pleased.
We have all been very well this winter. This locality is a great improvement on Bedford. The children are all so well and I am better than I have been for years. In fact very rarely have anything the matter with me besides being quite a genteel size.
I will enclose Alec’s certificate in my letter – see that he puts it away carefully as it may come in useful to him sometime. I am glad to hear he is doing so well. Some of the children are writing to him so I’ll send him a few lines another time. I send you the Weekly Times now every Friday – I hope you get them.
I suppose you heard Ida ???? was going to be married at last. This is quite a notable year for marriages among my friends. Katie Porter and Edgar Kempson are to be married in June, Charlie Cheyne in July, Jean in August, and Mr Northey has already gone off. I wonder when Alice and George Amor intend marrying – there is no word of it yet.
We are having such miserably cold weather – everything is so backward the trees and hedges are quite yet and this is 27 April; I have been putting in a few seeds in the garden. Noel is the one who takes the most interest in these things – he reminds us so much of Alec in many of his ways.
I am afraid you find my letters very dull but it is rather difficult to find anything to write about, still even this is better than nothing.
All the girls are well. I heard from Mary and Edie a few days ago.
Give my love to Alec and accept the same dear Chris from
Your affectionate Mater
Cecilia Elmslie
19 Anerley Park
Anerley
SE
28 April 1888