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47 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh. - The Toveys are very glad that Mrs Trevelyan is coming on Monday. They have arranged with Mrs Banks of 25 Chalmers St that Grettie will lunch with Mrs Trevelyan there; they will then go to Don's lecture on musical analysis at 3 o'clock. Her aunt Jane Anderson will also be there, and they will all take tea afterwards in 'Don's den'. Hopes she will take the evening meal at theirs, with music afterwards.

47 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh. - Is very sorry to think of 'Poor' Miss [Constance] Whishaw's orphanage [Sunnybank, Arnside] 'degenerating in that fashion'; it was at Christmas 1897 that she met her and Miss Cark [sic: Minna Karch?] at a hotel in Cap d'Antibes but she never saw them again; her aunt Jane [Anderson] is also upset at the news. Don is playing from an old edition of Cramer's studies. He has just been reading the full score of "Ariadne auf Naxos" by George [sic] Benda in an 'ancient book' he found in the class room library today; she is to tell Trevelyan that 'Benda's librettist's Ariadne is a very ordinary minx!'. The [Reid?] Orchestra has not started yet. Don has been busy writing his programme notes for his series of Beethoven recitals. Grettie kept him in bed and away from the class room on Monday and Tuesday because of a cold, but he is better now. The Reception at the Union went well: Sir Alfred and Lady Ewing are 'particularly unostentatious little people' and 'gave a homely air to the proceedings'; Professor Barlka sang to Don's accompaniment and 'tried hard' to follow his suggestions for improvement. She has indeed seen Don conduct, in the Mozart concerts: he 'looked perfectly splendid, and so purposelike'. Hopes Bessie's 'invalids' have recovered: colds are going around, Mrs [Christina] Niecks has been ill, and Grettie's sister Isabel is currently in bed ill. Bessie should tell Julian he needs to come and inspect 'the Waverley' himself, as she only saw half of it. Mr [Edward] Speyer has sent the Toveys 'the most beautiful little work of an Old Master' which they are charmed with.

14 Napier Road, Edinburgh. - Her father has been very ill, but is now recovering; Don seemed quite upset, as they are such friends, but is all right again now. The nurse has to leave soon but they have advertised for and engaged a couple, the Turnbulls, to stay with him. The Toveys hope very much to move soon into a house on their favourite street which came up to let at just the right time. Aunt Jane [Anderson] has been very good to them. Bessie's rug will be a 'delightful gift'. Don is very well, though busy with [the Reid] 'orchestra, classes & recitals'; he is very glad to have the message about the opera [the "Bride of Dionysus"]

14 Napier Road, Edinburgh. - Apologises for not replying sooner; the month of concerts [by the Reid Orchestra] was 'a time apart'. The concerts were a great success, but in future they will be arranged for once a fortnight. The question of payment then became a concern, but the 'financial member of the [University] Court... a kind, interested friend' solved their problems and persuaded a private individual to pay the hundred pounds lacking; everything Mr Walker could do to relieve them was done cheerfully. Don's programmes, over which he took great trouble, sold well. They have not yet moved house; her aunt Maggie Anderson has invited them to stay at her house by the sea at Elie, which will provide beneficial rest, then they will organise the move. They do not expect to go south this summer, and have taken a house at Yetholm for September; her Aunt Jane will come with them. They all admire Robert Trevelyan's poem about Krishna; she and Don have also been reading 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn' aloud. Bessie has asked her to explain 'Sir Walter's "Dutchman"': she can only suggest that 'Dutchman' may be used to mean 'foreigner'. The Toveys went to Glasgow on Friday, as Don presided over the prize-giving at the Athenaeum school of music; Grettie describes the experience of being photographed at Lafayette's in the afternoon. Don is 'resuscitating' Kirkhope's Choir: a circular was originally enclosed with this letter. Hopes to be able to take up Bessie's kind invitation to come to the Shiffolds, and that they will also see the Trevelyans at 'The Wabe', as Don jokingly refers to the new house.

2 St. Margaret's Road, Edinburgh. - Don is well and busy with University work again; the first meeting of the revived Kirkhope Choir takes place tonight under his direction and Mr Kirkhope will be there to introduce him; it is a 'great trial' to her to be absent. They like their house very much: it is 'countrified' and sunny. She is very grateful to be home: Don had a 'dreadful time of it' and she would have been even more anxious if he had not been staying with her Aunt Jane [Anderson]. Her father is very well: by a 'big effort' she went to see him yesterday, for the first time in three months, though he had been to see her. It was 'truly terrible' in the nursing home.

2 St Margaret's Road, Edinburgh. - His wife Grettie has been very ill: was ill during the 'flitting' [house-moving], then the doctor called in a specialist and found an operation was necessary; a much more serious one followed a week after. She is now recovering well, and he hopes will leave the nursing home in a fortnight. Her Aunt Jane, whom Bessie may remember, is 'a priceless treasure'. Is getting on well with Homer and finding Crusius's dictionary 'most luminous'.

14 Beaumont Street, Oxford. - Is sorry he could not write in time for Bob before his departure; asks if Bessie could send this letter on to him, as it is difficult to write twice and Tovey wants them both to know everything. Is in Oxford with [Grettie's] Aunt Jane, who is 'as good as gold' but shows 'appalling contempt for doctors' and 'conceit of her own judgement': quotes her view of Grettie's condition at length, which is that Grettie has had this kind of attack before, that she becomes 'hysterical' each time there is something wrong internally, and should not be indulged; she has written to the rest of the family to say so. Tovey thinks it is 'something like a miracle' that she has survived their 'home treatment' and now instead of being 'scolded into shape', with it being left 'a nice open question' whether he ever took her back again, she is in the hands of an educated man who will not let them interfere. Tovey believes she has suffered for twelve years from 'the repression... of all her talents'. They must get a housekeeper, and 'Grettie must have a studio'. Has tried to 'draw her out' for the last two years but she has suffered from the feeling she should not take up anything but the 'drudgery' she had at home. Asks if it would be possible to 'rediscover Mrs Fry': the work would be much easier as they will only have breakfast at home due to coal-shortages, and there will be 'no stormy petrels from Englefield Green' [Miss Weisse].

So far Grettie agrees with this idea, and Tovey thinks she is giving him 'her real self': saw her for the first time yesterday, and after two phases of hostile 'camouflage' the 'real thing' came through, mixed up with her 'left-hand theory' (she is left-handed and has been 'brought up to be afraid of shewing it'). Perhaps will be another six weeks until she is quite sane again, and she is meanwhile 'instituting a crusade against the management of the Institution'; sees some of her points but prefers 'the risks of typhoid to the horrors of more dear good kindly Scotch firmness' and thinks the 'strange disciplinary attitude' she started showing towards him came directly from her family's treatment of her.

Kensington Palace Gardens, W.8. - Thinks he is returning to Edinburgh on Friday, after getting a fortnight's leave. Grettie is making 'a splendid recovery, hampered only by her abominable relations': after seeing Aunt Jane, she is going to Edinbugh and 'meeting another aunt whose daughter has gone violently off her head'. Tovey can do nothing; [Grettie's sister?] Jessie Hanson, whom Bessie met in Edinburgh and whom Tovey calls 'a bad cheap copy of Grettie', is with them all the time and encourages 'that morbid vein of insolence' which the doctors recognise as the commonest symptom. Grettie is all right after a day or two alone with him, but she cannot get that. They have been seeing things in London: [Arnold Bennett's] "The Title", which was very good, the National Gallery, and Hubert Cornish. She is 'first-rate' with his friends, as she is with her family; it is just that with her family she is 'simply horrible' to Tovey, and writes 'dangerous letters to doctors etc'.

13 Napier Road. - Is grateful for Bessie's letter with the news that the doctor has found nothing wrong with Grettie [Tovey, her niece]: a great relief, though she has always felt it was 'sheer exhaustion' from which Bessie was suffering. Not at all surprising, after 'all G. came through last summer' that she had an 'ache on the right side'. Rest at the Shiffolds seems an ideal arrangement: it will be good for her and Donald to be in the country with close friends, though she is not surprised Grettie hesitated to cause the Trevelyans trouble; thanks for all the care they have taken of her.

University of Edinburgh headed notepaper. - Is now 'pretty sure' that things will improve in the end, mainly because [Grettie's] family now 'understand the facts more intelligently than they did' so he can let them help, his sister in law Mrs Archibald in particular. Is sure that, if he and Grettie could have got away from them altogether, she would have improved in a few weeks rather than months. She is currently staying for a few weeks in the country with her Aunt Jane, while Tovey is in Edinburgh with his sister in law and another aunt. The doctor is their old family doctor, who has returned from the war; Tovey has come to a good understanding with him. The family's 'idea of its duty & its sympathetic impulses' was even worse than he had thought; it is really to their credit that they have 'come round of their own accord'. Has reached the Symphony in Act II in his arrangement of the opera ["The Bride of Dionysus"]; the German version is variable, and sometimes impossible to set. A novelty to have the music in 'a really playable form'. Has written what he thinks will be his last addition to the score, at the end of the first scene of Act I; describes this in detail, and gives the musical notation for the final chords. Hopes that Bob 'is satisfied with the behaviour of the [Paris Peace] Conference'; he himself feels that 'le mieux est l'ennemi du bien' and is thankful that so much progress 'towards common sense' has been made.