I received your letter & thank you for all your attention in writing &c but beg to decline at once Mrs Reynarts terms. we made her an offer of 60 frcs each per month just what I gave at Spermalie where the accomodation & every other arrangement was much superior. Neither Mrs Perkins or myself can afford to launch out into extravagant prices & as for the cooking or an English dish we are quite satisfied with the plainest food. The enclosed I wrote yesterday Morningp2which I now send & will explain matters further. as regards Mary,[1] for the more I think of her case the more decided I am and I feel I am not able to have the expense of her any longer she must leave & I look to you to tell her so. I don’t feel I at all misrepresented her to Mrs Reynarts I wish she or some one would take Mary and then perhaps the word of a Fleming might convince you that the poor unfortunate child is not fit for service & knows next to nothing. I have no wish top3disparage her but I think if’- dear Father I had just written so far when you called. I have as you told me talked the matter over with my friend & I candidly tell you we went to look at lodgings with the view of lessening our expenses by getting rid of Mary!. I have got at the opinion of my friend, she would go heart & soul into the work if she only could do it with first - a clear view that it was a true charity and secondly that she could justly do it without running into debt
First she thinks its impossible to teach girls anything in our style of life, we have neither materials nor work for them living in thisp4small place, there is literally nothing to do but what a child could do and all of us living together makes it impossible to teach them even the first rudiments a servant ought to acquire namely humility and a knowledge that God has appointed us each our proper place. so that to her mind it seems a cruelty to send such untaught servants into the World. It keeps them certainly out of mischief but they waste time and get into idle ways. we could not keep them for ever, & when we do turn them away they will have a difficulty in finding any one else to put up with them. without meansp5and a properly appointed house, it is simply impossible to teach servants. In Mary’s case I know she thinks she ought to be at home helping her Sisters[2] setting a good example as she is quite able to do where God has placed her for He is able to save her soul better than we can. What I am writing please remember is no message from her, she would not presume to offer her opinion to you, we think by clubbing together, as we do here, is far less expense than living in apartments even at 60 francs (the way we live) and as we are both depending on others for income & don’t know exactly what we have for certain we beg of you to relieve us asp6soon as you can of the expense of Mary but I enclose you the letter I wrote on Sunday on this point.
I beg you will pardon all the trouble we have given you and bear patiently with my imperfections which I see well enough & find difficult to bear with myself! —
