Seward House
Badsey
15th February 1899
My dear Ethel,
We are going to time our letters this week so that you should receive them on Friday morning, they may perhaps help you through the retreat a bit; I hope you will have a nice preacher for the creditations & that you will not find the silence too trying.
We were delighted to find you had got as high as 6th in form, that is capital, I hope you will be able to keep a pretty good place & never get much lower than 10th & then you should come out pretty well at the end of the term.
Baby is quite jolly again, but she won’t walk by herself now, & roars if one tries to make her stand quite alone; May did coax her to go two or three steps today. You would have laughed the other evening, I had taken her out at bedtime & put her in again & she was quite quiet for a long time while I was getting ready for bed; just the last thing I went to the little cupboard & got out some biscuits ready for morning, when suddenly I heard “ta” from her little bed, she was awake & heard the tin at once; of course she had to have a piece of biscuit.
I wrote to congratulate Fanny Walton last Sunday, I have not heard again how she & the baby are getting on.
Mrs Oliver Harwood has another son born about a fortnight ago, Mrs Stewart is ill & has given up nursing, so they are trying to start a district nurse for here & Bretforton, one is here now, she is a regular trained nurse.
May & I are attending some lectures on Home Nursing at the Parish room; the lecturer, Miss Sykes, looks very nice & gives very interesting lectures, the first Monday she showed us how to change the sheets with the patient in bed, & last Monday she showed how by the help of a draw sheet, two women could lift a helpless patient, even if he should be a good weight; Arthur Somerton was the patient, there were 17 at the first class, & 13, last Monday, but it was such a frightful evening that I thought no one would be there, it was blowing a gale, & just before we went down there had been a thunder storm, hail & tremendous rain.
We had a fine day yesterday, but today has been very wet again; we take poor Babs out whenever there is the slightest chance, but she has had to stop indoors more the last few weeks than ever in her little life before.
We went to 10 o’clock service this morning, there were 7 there, & May & I went this evening when there were about 35 people. I believe the Confirmation is to be on the 19th March at half-past three.
With much love to Kathleen & yourself
I remain
your loving mother
Eugénie N Sladden
