Maria Grace Saffery, [Frome], to Jane Saffery Whitaker, Bratton, Monday, 21 November [1836].

Monday Novr 21st

Dearest Jane,

         The enclosed to Mrs Brown was written to soothe Mary’s mind – I think with you that silence might best secure her repose for the future – and she too, is more than half persuaded, to let the investigation alone.  Her suspicion immediately alighted on the good Lady at Raptoe and in the moment of irritation arising from the first trial of a disappointment [from] interference – You may imagine what she dictates of inclination [now] – I send the copy of my epistle for you to transcribe [and] pour outward and burn as you may deem expedient at all events I should not like to injure, even in the opinion of a stranger, any part or portion of the Jewin family.

         Alfred returned from Holcombe this morng with good tidings of our dear Anne. The husband and the children too are in excellent condition. The youthful Mary Attwater, and the still blooming Mary Saffery, are now the ladies in attendance – we are very tolerably, prepared also here, to furnish a comfortable bulletin dispatch. Though to say [the] truth, the fog makes no very pleasant impression on my spirits; and my nerves and muscles, like factions in the body politic, weary me with sundry little grievances that imply causes from complaint in the whole system, for the general operation of which I find abundant cause for thankfulness, and if you approve, seal, and forward it to me – Catherine and Alfred must be remembered in the messages of love at the farm, which I commission your tenderness to express for me.

         Once more adieu. I am almost afraid to read what I have written, but it must suffice, that your partial eye, will rest on the signature of –

                                             Maria Grace Saffery

I imagine that neither you nor dear Joshua can be in the least degree ‘peat’ while you are breathing the air of these November days – but I hope you will write to us to prove that you are cheered with sunshine, which can pierce the wintry gloom.  Adieu my love  I wrote to you on Friday Evening – as you observe by the enclosed.  Please to read the letter addressed to Mrs George

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 432-33 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.5.c.(3.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Joshua Whitaker | Bratton.  This letter is after the marriage of Jane Saffery to Joshua Whitaker in 1835, and most likely after the birth of Arthur, the third child of Anne and Robert Green of Holcombe, on 16 December 1836. MGS is visiting Alfred Whitaker at Frome.