Letter to Harriet Stone Leslie, probably 1851 or 1852

Mary writes to her mother, relaying a "funny story" that she says is related to one that her sister Caroline has included in a recent letter to Bradford. The story concerns a little girl who had her pet sparrows baked into a pudding for her birthday. The rather macabre tale, Mary reflects, is "not such a funny one as Caroline's, but it sounded much better than I can write it." Mary writes about her drawing habits of late, copying faces out of books by Chalon and Lewis. She reports on a fair in Chepstow, which she is missing because of the rain. She also writes of visiting the grounds of the estate of the Phillipses, a local family. She includes two pen and ink vignettes--one of birds decorating a vase of flowers with string and a sketch of the fair.