Maria Grace Saffery, Oakington, to Jane Saffery Whitaker, Bratton, Thursday, 13 August [1846].

Thursday Evening

Oakington August 13th

Beloved Jane

         I am longing for a letter from Holcombe, where you are now stationed for a while; enjoying I hope the sweet sympathies of social life, fraught with the tender interest of human friendship beneath the smile of your Heavenly Father!

Friday morning

         I was proceeding to ask for tidings, when the late Eveng hour induced me to lay aside my pen and wait for the morrow; and now I have your dear letter to rejoice over; which reached me under cover of one from Waltham giving from thence a mingled report of comfort and anxiety. Philip was again suffering from Lumbago consequent on having been exposed to the mischief of a damp bed – he writes home by every post and soon I trust, we shall have an answer of peace to our inquiries and our united prayers on his behalf.

I came hither on Monday last, and think of returning some time in the following week. I am pleased with the Vicarage as a dwelling place; & thankful for the cordial welcome received from the dear Vicar who met me at the Cambridge station. Yesterday I went with him, accompanied by Charlotte and little Catherine, from Lincoln’s Inn to see the University wonders. The Colleges and Halls, some of them at least, greatly exceeded my expectation – and made me wish for your companionship.  Though I could not without regret have detached you from the immediate Circle at which you are now a guest at home! I must venture at no length of Epistle – I have been suffering with many others from the intense heat of the weather; but I am now hoping for a return of my usual health with the merciful change which has taken place in the Atmosphere – and I am greatly comforted by your report from Holcombe this morning. George too, heard good news from Bratton yesterday –

         Adieu Beloved – speak for me with all affection to the Husband & ye sweet Children and to the dear ones with whom you are now sojourning. I beg to be remembered with a salutation, from the heart – of thy Mother and thy Friend

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

All kind greetings must be forwarded from the kindred here  to those yourself and those with whom you are now abiding  Sweet Bertha is delightfully well.

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.5.c.(7.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No address or postmark. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 450-51. Maria Grace Saffery is spending time with her nephew, George Whitaker, and family at Oakington, Cambridgshire, not far from Cambridge.