Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/362

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338
LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL
CHAP.

other course being adopted. How glad one is if anyone one has suspected does better than one has hoped ! The next letter refers to the Bunhill Fields burial ground.


14, Nottingham Place,
November 21st, 1875.

To Miss Harris.

Thanks for letter to Mr. Harrison. I hope to make way in the matter ; but it is a little difficult to know how to begin. However Mr. Bond and I are to see the ground on Wednesday ; and, on Saturday, Mr. Lefevre, now Chairman of the Commons Preserva- tion Society, the Secretary and the Solicitor are to meet Mr. Bond and me ; and then I presume we shall make a formal application to the " Six Weeks' " Meeting. I long to get the ground ; but though the Local Board will surrender immediately their seventeen years' lease, so far as I at present see, there is no chance of the Quakers doing anything, except selling at full value. We may manage the cost ; but it points to securing churchyards if possible, which would only entail the cost, very heavy I imagine, of making them beautiful, not the purchase also. However we shall see : at any rate, it is a definite bit of ground in a popular poor neigh- bourhood to be sold ; and the thing is to learn the price, to see whether we can raise it ; and if so, whether it is the best expenditure for the money. Perhaps, if the Six Weeks' Meeting can do nothing in the way of generosity, the application may interest individual members to give. At any rate we must see. I am full of thought about it all. I wonder if you see the Charity Organisation Reporter, and noticed the appointment of Mr. Loch as secretary. Did I tell you that he is engaged to Miss Peters, and so good ? I daresay