Branston, 8 October 1889

Dear Mr Marshall

We sincerely thank you and Mrs Marshall for your most kind expression of your regard and sympathy for us in our sad distress of mind for our double bereavement. I believe that your personal knowledge, of my dear daughter, Anne, led to your more particular pity for us as you knew less of Col. Atwill Curtois who lived so far away. This last blow is to us of the same sort as the first (both being equally loved) but it tells more acutely on our daily life, as you must feel and besides it has been struck more suddenly and unexpectedly than the other and the two together are grievous ills. May God, in giving these poignant warnings, leave tokens of his love behind in each affliction, when we rise up to fell more calmly the whole dispensation.

We were truly thankful to hear from you that worshippers of your chapel felt for us, and begged of God to alleviate our distress. It is a sure sign of our regard for each other that the same Lord and the same Jesus is the object of our mutual appeal for mercy. Pray say that I thank them from my very heart for their good will and sympathy.

With kind regard

Yrs. sincerely in sorrow

P. Curtois

PS Personally I am very weak and unwell and these hourly add to my ailments.