Pièce 11 - Letter from Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood to Robert Offley Ashburton Milnes, 2nd Lord Houghton

Buckingham Palace Hotel. - Lady Galway asks her to send 'these precious letters' to Houghton; is 'glad to return to the son, a part of the debt I owe to the father'; knew the first Lord Houghton from 1869 until his death, and he was often a visitor at her house when in America; she gave him his 'first large reception' in New York and had the pleasure of being with him in Rome in 1885, when he wrote her the 'pretty Valentine' she now sends. Has 'never met so curious a combination of wit and tender heart'; thinks Houghton's 'own lines should be his epitaph: "A helping hand to the weak /A friendly hand to the friendless...'.

Has other letters of his at her country home and left them behind when she left hurriedly to reach London for the Jubilee and could not find them; asks if she may send them if she does.