Letter signed, in the hand of Mary Aitken : London, to Thomas Constable, 1874 February 25.

Thanking him for giving him a copy of his biography of his father, Archibald Constable, and expressing his pleasure at reading it: "nobody here, or perhaps elsewhere, could read it with such a vivid and almost personal interest as I myself did; for the period of it, since I first saw Edinr., and brings to my mind, in colours fresh as yesterday, all the noteworthy singular and anyway distinguished people that I have lived in the world along with, and am now almost a solitary survivor of."; reminiscing about mutual acquaintances treated in Constable's biography, including [Dr. Duncan] Forbes, Mr. [Alexander Gibson] Hunter, and Sir Walter [Scott] and advising him to "not be very angry with Lockhart; he speaks indeed improperly about your father here and there; but I can bear witness that the high idea I got of him from Lockhart is essentially the same as I derived from your book.".