The Grange / Northend. Most dear } Aunt Sophie / Mrs. Dalrymple / I dont know how / to write because I cant say / Aunt Sophie now for I am / a hundred years old this very / day - gray, bald, shrunk. old, / withered & decrepit, mentally & / bodily - and I cant write / because what is there to say / in the four sides of a sheet of / paper, or the four hundred sheets? / I do wish you could come & / see me & what I have done, or / let me go to see you, for / I at least cannot forget old / friendship & you dont I know / and I should like to see you. / - it was very pleasant seeing / Walter & ? to see / Virgie, who has grown up / & most lovely woman - / whose little turns of speech / and a hundred little ways ? / you vividly how many years back!! / - I have been so glad to see / her today - and if all the luck / in life could happen that I / am now wishing how happy she / would be, / This I write while the ? / ?, that I may nor put it / off - & forgive me for not / writing before - there was / too much to say - and I dont know whether to say / Aunt Sophie or not - because / you are now so many years / younger than I, who have / lived so many more years / than you know of since I / saw you - & have visited / the Infinite regions since / As always I am your /affectt. Ned
Burne-Jones lived in The Grange from 1867 and here he is waiting for the headed notepaper.