Mount Holly is the place Anne returns to after a pilgrimage through her family’s past in Bolingbroke. There, in the privacy of her room, she reads the letters left by Walter and Bertha Shirley; the place’s significance in this episode lies in providing a quiet setting for a newly recovered family history to become personal and immediate.

Place in Anne’s Visit

Anne’s visit to Bolingbroke takes her first to the shabby yellow house where she was born, a dwelling she recognizes from years of imagining it. She notices the lilac by the gate and the muslin curtains in the windows. After receiving her parents’ letters, she makes another pilgrimage alone, leaving the white flowers she has carried on their grave in the old Bolingbroke cemetery. Only then does she hasten back to Mount Holly.

The Room and the Letters

At Mount Holly, Anne shuts herself in her room and reads the twelve letters, some written by her father and some by her mother. They are yellowed, faded, and blurred by time, but preserve the tenderness and trust of Walter and Bertha Shirley’s courtship. Anne is especially moved by the letter Bertha wrote to Walter after Anne’s birth: its account of the baby’s brightness and sweetness, and its loving attention to her, makes the letters a record not only of her parents’ affection but of their affection for her. Mount Holly thus marks the inward turn of the visit: after seeing the house and grave associated with her origins, Anne encounters her parents through their own words.