Letters of Christina Rossetti. 30 Torrington Square-W.C., Saturday 28th [?February 1885]

My dear [his sister] Alice (age 60),

My Mother & I pay you affectionate thanks-to you & to Mrs Scott-for offering us this time a friendly pleasure we can accept. With your leave we hope to be with you at 2 o'clock next Thursday, & shall be happy to see the Miss Courtneys again, & to look forward to a late view of Mr Scott. Pray observe that your memoria technica has enabled me to spell your sisters' names correctly.¹ It is happy for me that you did not select Thursday in this week, as I am struggling thro' an amorphous phase thanks to a gathering in my nose! but by next Thursday I trust I may be presentable to indulgent eyes. My dearest Mother's health continues, I am thankful to say, good, & she takes her little walks despite various winds of the compass.

With my Aunt's remembrances

Always your affectionate

Christina G. Rossetti (age 54)

Note 1. Actually AB's (age 60) half sisters, born to her mother Margaret Losh Boyd who married Henry Courtney after her first husband's death. AB's brother, Spencer Boyd, thirteenth laird of Penkill Castle, left the property to Alice at his death in 1865 but with the proviso that if she died without an heir it would pass to one of his mother's remaining children. Thus, when AB died on 11 April 1897, Penkill and the title were inherited by Eleanor Margaret Courtney Boyd (fifteenth laird), the eldest of the half sisters mentioned in this letter.