1794

Thomas Beddoes to Rosamond Beddoes, 11 March [1794]

Dear Sister

I shall set out to fetch Anna Edgeworth tomorrow I sh^d have set out sooner but Mrs Reynolds’ youngest child has been desperately ill of the croup but is now recovered Jack shall come Sunday sevennight. I hope you will not set your heart against your sister in law. I believe, if you do not, you cannot fail to like her I am sure she wishes to be agreeable to you, as she has often told me – and if she sh^d be a very diff^t person to what you have conceived it might, I sh^d think, be a great comfort to you to visit her occasionally. At all events, you will not surely offer her so gross an affront as not to see her, though as she is free from pride or malice, she w^d be more sorry than angry not to find you at Shifnal—I can assure you at least whatever reason you may have or think you have to find fault with me, she is as innocent of any ill-will towards you as an unborn child. So I hope you will shew her kindness, & if she does not return it, it will time enough to discard her acquaintance then. I sh^d be glad my aunt Kitty c^d come too – she need not imagine that her niece will have any of the airs of a fine lady.

My mother seems tolerably well off for a maid now.

Tell Mr Smallman that Mr Brown says if a person has been 10 years abroad & never heard of, the heir may move the Chancellor & take the estate; but if the person returns, he will take it again – I shall send by the next parcel of papers a book on watering meadows. It is Mr Reynolds’s – Let my two uncles read it & bring it back

I shall write to Shifnal when I shall be there – so hoping to find you, I remain yours affectionately

Thomas Beddoes

11 March

Address: Miss Beddoes at Mr Whitehalls / Hopesay / to be left at Mr Dykes / Newton / Near Sibdon Castle / Montgomeryshire
MS: Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, Dep. c. 135/2.