1793 October 13 (Anne)

Anne Andrews, Isleworth, to Maria Andrews, Salisbury, Sunday, 13 October [1793].

Sunday Even^g Oct^r 13^th

My dear Maria need I tell you how very acceptable your last Letter was to me after so long a silence you will easily judge my feelings and the sensation of joy I experienced when I first recognised the well known Characters – I welcomed the Post Boy with an anxious Countenance and eagerly desired King to deliver up his charge He gave me one letter but Alas! it was not from Sarum I question’d him if he had no other and received a negative reply that fill’d me with an excessive chagrin in which M^rs Betty participated he left the House and I placed myself at the breakfast Table in no very chearful mood but presently the door open’d and our new Servant whom by the by we like very well, enter’d triumphant with a Letter in his extended Hand – The seal wax soon yielded to my trembling fingers and I began to participate in the soft the social intercourse & to realize the presence of my Beloved – tho’ I profess to be sympathetically acquainted with your Heart, and tho’ I repose with unlimited confidence on the sincerity of your affection, yet I will thank you for, and acknowledge myself gratified by, the sweet expressions of it; which I entertain no doubt are the genuine Offspring of the Mind, you know a favorite maxim of mine, borrow’d from a favorite Bard –

“The Ostent of our love when left unpaid,

Is often left unlov’d!”

Neither the time nor my material feelings are suited to the Offices or requirements of friendship. I am obliged to you for your Quotation which I very much admired – I send you the things you wish, and also some black feather which I think may serve to encircle a Hat it being the newest fashion – pray write more peculiarly and let me know when you are agreeably accommodated with Hats &c that I may be enabled to figure your external as well as your internal –

We are all pretty well & desire various remembrances M^rs Wynne and Larkin included – Adieu my d^r Grace and believe me

Your tenderly devoted Friend & sister,

A Andrews

I’ll send you your old black Cloak which I think may be serviceable to you

Text: Reeves Collection, Box 14.3.(m.), Bodleian Library, Oxford. Address: Miss Andrews. No postmark; for a fully annotated text of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 58-59.