From collection Frances Willard Journal Transcripts
Poor Cossie has a hard cold& pain in the hip. She does not I fear bring the amount of resistance to these attacks that she did a year ago. We invested most of this day in thinking of those whom we would on no account omit on Christmas day-especially the humbler helpers here & at Eastnor. 0 that the day may come when all shall have equal opportunities of development of body & mind & none shall be surfeited with goods. Certainly Isabel has simply an army to whom she must "show tokens." I have sent off 1000 Christmas remembrances of one kind & another. And Mother dear could only by utmost ingenuity have the smallest gift for us in the Wisconsin days-& now she is no more!
December 25, 1893
Arthur Pollen bro't me 2 sable skins from Athabaska. I suppose of his own fetching. He was here on Sunday & is deciding about going with Somey around the world which I hope he will do for he is a young man of pure habits & progressive ideas. On Sunday night Mary B Willard leaves Berlin for Russia with a party of her girls-the 3 children remaining at home. Poor Rob he only is solitary-by reason of his woeful life-& yet the best natured of them all when a little fellow. I used to hold him in my arms & think no child was ever half so sweet-no baby ever seemed so near & dear. Poor Rob! I wonder what grandma thinks about him these days! I write & send often & pray & hope.
December 26, 1893
I went with Cossie to give their pledges to her girls at St Mary's Home-they had decorated the dining room. They seemed most glad to raise their hands in thanks [?] &. messages to the Gordons.-I said to Cossie as we budged [?] along in the darkness "somehow I feel guilty that I haven't given to the poor." She said in her decisive way "You couldn't do it & you know you couldn't & there's an end of it!' Thus she checks me up in many a maundering regret. We wennt walking in the crystalline air-so unlike its usual heaviness. Isabel & her son arm in arm among the Priory paths-I on my bicycle. He agreed with her to go back to Oxford-a great comfort to her for he must have more schooling.
The priory will be 200 ft [from] [?] most distant parts to each other-Cossie tried to write on New Year letter
December 27, 1893
Cossie off to London-I went to see Mrs Fenwick-Miller author of a Life of Harriet Martineau to ask her to write for Lady H's paper which she will do. She told me why she had pictures of 5 men in her room-16 famous women of olden time, 12 of new time & a group of Queens. She was greatly interested in my learning the bicycle. At lunch a pleasant talk with Somey who is really a charming fellow-full of intelligence & intellect, only lacking in application. But I believe he would make a good perhaps with
