Welcome back to Austen Promises!

Here’s a link to last week’s post, in case you missed it. 🙂

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Let me begin with a small excerpt out of To Save Elizabeth, an excerpt that was my inspiration for today’s Purple post.

~~~***~~~

The next afternoon, Darcy was in his library, his favorite volume of Shakespeare in his hand, relaxing after a long morning of answering correspondence, when his solitude was interrupted by his butler.

“A message has just come for you, sir.” Mr. Baxter held out the silver salver containing the missive as he bowed.

Brows furrowed, Darcy’s curiosity was piqued as he reached out to accept the letter. Light, he thought. Must be a single sheet. As he waved Baxter away, Darcy turned the missive over to examine the direction. Gardiner. Gracechurch Street. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner and her niece; I have been waiting for this. Darcy broke the seal and unfolded the letter, where a short but polite message filled the space.

Gracechurch Street

London

Mr. Darcy,

My wife shared with me your invaluable assistance with our niece yesterday afternoon, and told me of your wish to be informed as to our Lizzy’s condition.

First, let me thank you for stepping in to help. The assistance of someone of far greater consequence than ourselves was greatly appreciated by us both, though it was not at all a surprise to my wife, once she had learned your name and estate. She spent part of her youth in Lambton and remembers the Darcys as being kind and liberal, in general. She has fond memories of Lady Anne Darcy visiting her grandparents’ home and giving her sweets.

My niece is much recovered from her fright. Mrs. Gardiner tells me that Brutus’ presence made a distinct difference; the ride home was easier for Miss Bennet than the trip to Hatchards was. It has been more than half a year since we brought her to London; yesterday was her first ride in a carriage since her accident.

Mrs. Gardiner has decided to force our niece to learn to ride in carriages again. I am uneasy about subjecting my sister’s only surviving child to doing something that obviously terrifies her, but my wife insists the only way to get over a fear is to face it. We will begin by taking Brutus with us whenever we go, in the hopes that Miss Bennet will learn to ride without fear and leave him at home once again.

Thank you again for your timely and much-appreciated assistance.

Yours,

Edward Gardiner

Darcy nodded as he finished reading. They were right to require their niece to face her fear. To allow it to continue would be to limit her, socially and mentally. Miss Bennet was too bright a jewel to allow that to happen. Folding the letter, Darcy tucked it into his pocket, picked up his book, and began to read once more.  

~~~***~~~

So, Mr. Gardiner sent Darcy a letter. I’m fond of hand-writing letters, though I only get to do it rarely nowadays. I adore pretty stationery and fancy pens. If you could see pictures of this year’s planners, you’d shake your head. They’re so pretty with their erasable, fine-point ink lists and things. Sigh

Anyway, I was inspired by Mr. Gardiner’s letter to do an Amazon search for purple stationery. I was blown away by the results! (affiliate link)

We all know how much I adore purple. This page is like a purple stationery lover’s paradise. So many gorgeous options! I had such a difficult time choosing!

One thing that caught my eye right away was this set. (affiliate link) Purple and gold is a favorite combination. I love all the little clips and pins and things, too. (Office supplies!!! <3)

Once I went back to the search page, I really got distracted by all the goodies. Amazon considers lots of things to be stationery that I didn’t want in the search, like personalized purple Post-It notes with a matching pen, purple greeting and thank you cards, and purple legal pads.

I confess, I’m skeptical about the legal pads. When I was teaching, I bought a pack of a dozen “purple” legal pads that ended up being blue. At best, they were periwinkle. They were certainly not purple, nor were they lavender or lilac. They were blue. I still have a few of those left. I used them for to-do lists, because at the online school, my daily to-do list was humongous.

So, I got distracted by all the gorgeous purple goodness. I went back to the top and began deciding which the top non-gift-set stationery was. I ended up choosing this one (affiliate link), partly because the center is white and partly because of the envelopes. However, if I had unlimited funds, I’d probably get one or two of everything on that search page!

Are you someone who likes writing letters? Do you like using stationery, or do you prefer email or text messages?

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