I should write you more fully, but as the matter is a confidential one I thought it would be better to speak. We shall be doubly grateful if you will have the kindness to see us alone. I write as a mother in making this appeal to your kindness; for my child — she is only a little over eight years old — has the matter so deeply in her heart that any disappointment or undue delay would I fear affect her health. We presume to take your kindness for granted and will call a little before twelve o’clock.

‘I may perhaps say (in case you should feel any hesitation as to my bona fides) that my husband purchased some years ago this estate. We were to have come here to live in the early summer, but were kept in the West by some important business of his.

‘Believe me, yours sincerely,