Sent from Maria Sharpe Pearson
22 Jul 1912
Description:

‘My dear Miss Bell,

I feel that I have been ungrateful not to have written sooner to thank you for your splendid description of the puppies. It was much better than anything Louisa could have approached, & made us badly want to see them. The journey has not been planned out yet, but I believe they are really to come. She says, that she does not “funk it”. I feel a little anxious for the two girls with such a charge at such a busy travelling season as July 31st. (Wonderful & fearsul names have been chosen for them all six, of Gaelic origin.) I am feeling anxious too lest the colder northern climate may prove fatal to some of them. We have had no warmth since the beginning of last week, i.e. on Tuesday afternoon when we were sitting out on the terrace having tea, we saw a bank of smoke-like cloud rising up from behind the moor above Winsley Hill [nr. Castleton], which proved to be the north sea rauk [i.e. fog]. The two servants were at Whitby & it overtook them in the abbey grounds. Since then we have had weather of which the less said the better. Yesterday, in pouring rain Mr. [William Sealy] Gosset arrived rather late for breakfast, to which he had announced his intention of coming. He was wet through with walking along the line from Grosmont, as there are no Sunday trains. He had slept in a waiting room, somewhere on the way from Cambridge[.] He was presently rigged out in the Professor’s clothes, in which he said he felt like Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll’s. He seemed lively enough for long conversations on intricate processes, that he had come to propound to the professor. I don’t know how much you know him individually, but you know of him, & I can imagine what a delightfully easy full-of-life man he is. He has just gone off to the 3.17[?] p.m. train en route for Dublin, having made good use of the 30hrs. that he has been here. He carried off Dr. Heron’s paper as a little light literature, to read on the train. Ling, his master & Miss Elderton will go up the moor for a little walk after seeing Mr G. off. It is not raining for a wonder, & more wonderful still the distance is clear, & the air not laden with moisture, so that it was quite exhilarating when miss E. & I walked up by Hornby House this morning. The garden here is a great interest, very different from the want of one at Winsley hill. We get a good deal of rather small belated fruit from it, & hope for peas soon. Mrs. Herbert, our old temporary Cook, is a great hand at the vegetables & fruit, seeing at once what wants picking, & miss Elderton tends the flowers, sadly battered by the rain. The children & puppies come we hope on the 31st.. [sic] I am getting very impatient for Helga. I am afraid that Sigrid is rather disappointed in the amount of work done at Cambridge. We are all hoping that you are not staying on in August at College, but I ex[ect that you have already had a good many admonitions on that head & made up your mind to do what you like in spite of them. But seriously, do ask yourself whether perhaps your friends may not in this case know what is Wisest for you.

...

Thank you again, dear Miss Bell, for your letter about the puppies. I shall keep it as a record I will send you word when they are safe here.

With love, affectionately yours,

M.S. Pearson.’