TALBOT8403

Mount Edgcumbe
Sunday Oct^r 2^nd 1859

My dear Henry

I am very sorry you were not well enough to come here- It is so long since I have seen you. I hope you are better - but you must have been so very solitary all this time.

I suppose you have heard of the birth of my little grand daughter ¹ on the 23^rd Sept^r? I hear she has large eyes & beautiful dark hair - of which Val ² sent me a tiny specimen.

Prince & Ps^s Frederick William ³ have offered to be sponsors & I believe I am to be the other Godmother.

Have you also heard that M^r Gaisford is going to be married to Lady Emily S^t Lawrence? ⁴ He wrote me a very nice letter as soon as the marriage was settled. I am told she is a very amiable, pleasing, sensible person, & likely to be a kind mother to poor little Horace. ⁵ It will be a good thing too for M^r Gaisford, whose life is so unsettled & restless - & a comfort to have some one to share his anxiety about Horace, which is sometimes too much for him.

Will you tell all this to your belongings - for I do not know where they are. I want you also to tell me if Miss Emily Ford ⁶ is still alive? I have had a letter from a person whom I believe to be her, who very unwisely, (considering how long it is since we had any communication together), signs herself E. A. Ford & dates from Clarendon Crescent Leamington.

It cannot be a younger generation either, because she talks of having seen me long ago, & says also that she was an old friend of Mamma's - I should not hesitate in writing to her as Miss Emily Ford, only I seem to remember to have been told she was dead- Could you give me this information by return of Post? She writes on the subject of poor M^rs Wilkes, ⁷ who nursed Constance & me, & who has fallen into great distress - so it is very likely to be her-

Y^rs affl^y in haste
Caroline

[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esq^re
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham