| Description | This letter is dated as 'Monday 11th 72' with no month given. However, the letter makes reference to Easter eggs, suggesting that it was written in April following Easter Sunday which was March 31st 1872. This letter was written during the Easter holidays when the girls were staying at Villa Britannia.
Elizabeth remarks on Easter celebrations and holiday arrangements at the school and writes that she enjoyed the bolster matches, or pillow fights, which the girls had in their rooms in the evenings. She notes that she had accompanied some school-friends up into the woods with their books and shawls and had picked violets before being introduced to some new German pupils and their new French teacher by the school's principal Miss Meyer.
Elizabeth writes that she and her close school friend Edith Graham had been wandering around the house during the holidays and had 'formed the project of getting on to the roof' over the dancing room, where they had 'danced & played', having 'great fun'. Elizabeth writes how the girls had then begun 'throwing pieces of mortar' over to where the school's principal Miss Trinks and some other girls were sitting until they thought they had heard someone coming and had 'hurried away'. When the girls had climbed down from the roof Miss Trinks had confronted them saying she thought somebody had been throwing mortar from the roof. Elizabeth writes that she had rushed away with Edith and 'nearly exploded with laughing'.
Elizabeth notes that she had been 'advanced to the 1st class in history', adding that the history-master had been very pleased with her performance in lessons. Elizabeth writes that Miss Trinks had allowed the girls to have books from the German library during their holidays, something which she hoped would continue in term time. She remarks that she had borrowed 'The President's Daughters' by Fredericka Bremer, whose memoir she had read whilst in the Peckham Friends Book Society at home in England. |