Masonic Hotel, Napier
Thursday May 17th/06
My dearest Mother
I must just send you a few lines by the Suez mail which I see leaves here tomorrow morning. We say goodbye to Napier too tomorrow & have a long tedious journey before us to Marton, we leave here at 8.45 & get to Marton a little before 7 p.m. there are two changes on the way. However we are getting used to long days in the train & take them by now as a matter of course whenever we travel. I have enjoyed our stay here very much, this hotel is so nice & it certainly is nice to be at the best hotel in a place. We have seen quite a lot of Mr Hutchinson the last few days, he had to have a slight operation on his head the other day & is staying at a private hospital in town, his mother warned me the other day when she called that he was to have something done so we were not unduly surprised to meet him yesterday with bandages round his head, poor fellow I am afraid he has had to put up with a good deal since his accident. He is such a nice fellow, so original & interesting to talk to, I don’t think Aunt Lottie cares much about him but she knows he & I are very good friends so we have seen a good deal of him. I wonder whether it would seem very funny in England to go for walks with a man of one’s acquaintance with his head all bandaged up! At any rate he didn’t seem to mind after having apologies for his appearance & no more did we! Of course we did not choose the most frequented part of the town by tacit consent.
You would have enjoyed the Andrew Black concert last evening, it was so nice of Auntie to take tickets for it & she seemed quite to enjoy it. We went in full toggery too into the reserved seats! Mr Hutchinson said he should sneak in to the pack of the pit, he said this morning it was far superior to the usual run of Napier concerts as I had assured him it would be. You may like to see the programme which I enclose. Nearly all the items were encored but I can’t give the names of all the encore pieces.
We expect to be in Marton till next Tuesday then shall go on to New Plymouth where we may stay until after Whitsuntide if we like it. There is no news yet from Petone of any servant likely to be found just yet but I hope they will hear of some-one before long, Lita also is without one, the maid she rather thought was coming seems to have turned out a fraud. Frances & Marjorie we hear are home again at New Plymouth, they stayed a night at Marton on their way back.
I must go out in a few minutes & take a book back to the library – I am beginning to long for the next Frisco letters which we should have had long ago, I have no letters you see to answer so this is full I am afraid only of our own doings. Perhaps we shall get them when at Marton.
With very much love to you all
From your loving daughter
May E Sladden
