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White Lodge, Richmond Park
15 May 1889
Dear Sir Frederick
I have long wished to thank you for your touching expression of sympathy, but was so overwhelmed with kind letters of condolence, that their acknowledgment must be a work of time! Pray accept this as my excuse and be assured that my thanks, tho' tardily offered, are not the less warm and heartfelt. It is indeed a great sorrow, that has come upon us, for we have lost the best and kindest of Mothers and as time goes on we realise more and more the extent of our bereavement. Our beloved Mother was so entirely the centre, around which we moved, that the blank she has left in our lives never again to be filled, is terrible. But in the midst of our grief we are comforted by the knowledge that our loss, irreparable tho' it be, is Her very great gain and we thank God that she is at length released from all her weary pain and suffering and at rest and peace for evermore! The alarm, genuine sympathy, so universally shown us, has, I need hardly say, been very soothing to our mourning hearts and to find our darling Mother so generally beloved and revered and so truly mourned, is most gratifying to us, Her sorrowing Children. I was a great source of regret to me not to have visited the Royal Academy under your kind [-roneship]! this [-] but I hope ere the exhibition closes, I may have that pleasure provided you can arrange for me to see the pictures quietly.
Let me in conclusion assure you that your kind words expressing your own personal sorrow went straight to my heart and with renewed thanks,
Believe me,
Dear Sir Frederick,
Very sincerely yours
Mary Adelaide
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