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There is to be a meeting of all the Sunday Schools in the district next week at Bromley, and a collection, and a collation. We mean to eat up the collation, and give all our old clipped sixpences to the collection, which we think is a plan you would approve if you were here.

Madden⁵⁷ has given us so much to do, we have not a minute’s spare time. We are duller than a hundred posts about Astronomy, and if you can find any planets for us in Paris, we shall be obliged to you, as we cannot find one on the globe, and Madden only laughs at us. There! Good-bye, my dearest George. Take care of your little self. Your affectionate

EMILY EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

EDEN FARM,

Thursday, August 31, 1815.

MY DEAREST SISTER, Did Mama write to you yesterday? I wish I knew, but she is unluckily upstairs, and indeed I must say is hardly ever in the way when I want her.

I had meant to have answered your letter yesterday, but Mary, Miss Vansittart, and I went a-pleasuring, so that I had not time.

We went in the morning to Greenwich, where Mr. Van.⁵⁸ met us in the Admiralty barge, and took us to the steamboat.

We found there Lord and Lady Liverpool,⁵⁹ my dear Letitia Taylor, Lady Georgina, and Lady Emily Bathurst, Lord Bathurst, Lord Harrowby, Sir G. Hope, Sir George Warrender, Mr. Lushington, etc. Lady Liverpool still retains the notion that I am Miss Eden in the country, as well as in town, and introduced Mary as Miss E. Eden, and me as Miss Eden to all the company, and Mr. Van. insisted on calling Miss Taylor – Miss Rickets, so that the most curious effect steam has had yet was making a large company answer to wrong names.

The Invention itself, I believe, was supposed to succeed perfectly. We had a very pleasant row, or steaming, or whatever else it may be called, beyond Woolwich, and back to Greenwich again in three hours, during which time we also contrived to eat a large breakfast, and a larger dinner and dessert.

Lord Liverpool had some very improper purring scenes, and Lady Liverpool was very good-natured…

It must be an amusing sight to see Sarah⁶⁰ scolding the post-boy for not driving fast enough, or calling to the hostler for “a pair of horses to St. Albans immediately,” or adding up the innkeeper’s account, and giving him something over for the scoundrel that drove.

That is the style she must now adopt. Ever your affect. sister,

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

August 19 [1817].

MY DEAREST SISTER, The reason I am in such a state of ignorance about the letter is, that Mama and Louisa⁶¹ went to meet them in their way to London; that we were behind them in the poney-cart; and George behind us in the gig. We all fell in with each other and the letters in the middle of Penge Common, where we each took what belonged to us. I met immediately with the dreadful intelligence that you were going actually to take May Place, and on our recommendation, which dreadful intelligence I communicated to George, who immediately fainted away, and was driven off by his servant. I fainted away, and was driven off by Mary, and Mama and Louisa went on in hysterics to London. I really am quite in a fright about it, and cannot think what beauties I ever saw in it. The house is nothing but a pile of old bricks, the rooms cold, damp, dirty, inconvenient cells, the view cheerless and bleak, the offices large and decaying, the garden unproductive and expensive, the neighbours impertinent and intrusive, the gardener impudent, the housemaids idle, the landlord exacting, and the tenant in a terrible scrape indeed – and so is the tenant’s sister too, as far as I can make out… The only thing I know for certain is that I am to send our bricklayer there early to-morrow to look at the house, and to meet George, who goes there at break of day; and if I can bribe him, as he is a very clever person, to pull the whole thing down, I will. It is past letter-time, and I have not time to read over what nonsense I have written. Lady Byron⁶² and her child come here the 27th. Most affectionately yours,

E. E.

There is a rheumatic headache attached to the place, and let with it.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

TONBRIDGE,

October 10 [1817].

MY DEAREST SISTER, The “Eden Farmots” have kept me in such profound ignorance with respect to you that I had some doubts whether you were not settled at Charlton,⁶³ or whether you were not tired of the name of house, and had fitted up a nice hollow tree for yourself with some little hollow trees round it for your sisters and friends. It looks rather pretty and attentive though, in me, that I should answer your questions two days before you ask them.

This weather is particularly provoking in a house where there are but few books, but the last week we have contrived to be out nearly ten hours every day, beginning at seven in the morning. Getting up at that time and swimming through the fog to drink the coldest of all cold water is the least pleasant part of the day, but otherwise I have lost all hatred to exercise, from the circumstance of never being fatigued with any quantity of it.

The Vyners are so close to us that we are always together… I wish somebody would just have the kindness to marry Miss Vyner. She would be such an excellent chaperon-general to all young ladies.

We had on Sunday morning the finest sermon I ever heard from Mr. Benson – so fine that we went in the dark and in the rain to hear another. He began by preaching at the Opposition, which gave me a fit of the sullens; then he went on to smugglers, then to brandy merchants; and, lastly, laid the sins of the whole set and all the other misfortunes of the country upon “ladies who wore fancy dresses” and encouraged smuggling by example and money.

It is a very odd fashion now, I think, to abuse women for everything, but, however, there were so few gentlemen at Church that we all bore it tolerably well. People’s French bonnets sat tottering on their heads, and if it had not been for some sense of decency and a want of pockets, many a French shawl was preparing to step itself quietly out of the way. Your most affect. sister,

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

November 16 [1817].

MY DEAREST SISTER, You seemed by your last letter to be so overcome by the communications of your friends, that I burnt a long composition of mine. Indeed, nobody but an excellent sister could be induced to write on such a gloomy, dispiriting afternoon, but I have put the table close by the fire, with one leg (belonging to the table, not to me) in the fender, to prevent it from slipping away, the arm-chair close behind the table, and me supported by them both, holding a pen in one hand and the poker in the other, and now, have at you.

Yesterday was not a flourishing day by any means, but this is to be different, as the Osbornes⁶⁴ and their five noisy, unmanageable, provoking, tiresome and dear children are coming, so we have all collected whatever health and strength we possess to answer the demands of the day.

I called on Lady Grantham⁶⁵ last week. The Baby is a remarkably pretty child, immensely fat and very nice-looking for its age, but still I could not come up quite to her raptures on the subject, and I thought it still looked red like other babies, and I never should of my own accord have thought of coaxing it so much as she expected. Ever, my dearest Sister, most affect. yours,

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

NEWBY HALL,⁶⁶

Sunday Ev. September 13, 1818.

MY DEAREST SISTER, Your account of Mary agrees very much with her own. I do not know if you have heard from her since she has settled to pay a little visit at Frognal, but, if so, you must have thought with me that Lord Sydney⁶⁷ will be a very pleasant brother-in-law for us. Such a great addition, in every sense of the word, to our society, and when the Miss Townshends have been turned out of doors, upon any slight pretence, it will really be a very nice establishment.

I am going on here just as was expected, very unhappy at first for about three days, without any particular place in the room, or any particular rule about being in the library, or my own room, or Lady Grantham’s, and then, you know, my trunk and all my worldly possessions were missing and lost, which was a cruel blow, at my first setting out, but at last my dear trunk reappeared unexpectedly, and from that time I got comfortabler and comfortabler, till I could get no further.

Miss Wynn⁶⁸ I like very much, probably because I expected to dislike her. The rest of the family are perfectly inoffensive, with nothing particularly agreeable or disagreeable in them, except indeed I have the pleasure of beating Mr. Wynn at chess every evening, till the tears almost course one another down his innocent cheeks, but I go on beating him for all that.

Lady Grantham is much better than she was during the journey; we go out every day in the pony-cart together, and call on the farmers and cottagers. I do not understand one word in ten the people say, and should be glad to take a Yorkshire master if I could find one. I hope, for your sake, Gog Magog⁶⁹ is not as green as this place is, else you will be more angry than ever with the dusty trees and brown grass of Eastcombe. The grass was quite dazzling when I first came here, and the green is a bad colour for the eyes, after the nice quiet brown we have been accustomed to, but green peas agree remarkably well with me, and sometimes I give a little passing thought to you, when I am packing up a great forkfull of them, and again when the children bring me in immense nosegays of mignonette, sweet peas, jessamine, which are to be put out at night because they smell so very sweet.

Lady Grantham’s garden is beautiful, and full of every sort of flower, but then it is generally locked. The house is excessively comfortable, with a stove in every passage, and a fire in every room, servants’ and all, an excellent library, and a very pretty statue gallery, heaps of amusing books, and an arm-chair for every limb. I foresee a great probability of my being very happy here, as my love of Lady Grantham does not diminish by any means, and he and I are great friends, and he likes to be played to for hours together. Your most affec.

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to her Brother, Lord Auckland

NEWBY,

Monday [1818].

MY DEAREST GEORGE, Having in our former letters nearly settled all our business matters, I may venture this time to indulge you with a few lighter topics… This house is what Bob would call chuck full, but I do not think you know any of the company except the Markhams⁷⁰ and Mrs. Graham. I think all the Markhams pleasant in their way. Anne is rather an odd fellow, but very amusing, and Frederica is very pleasant. Cecilia desires me to give you her kind remembrance. As for your friend Mr. Graham,⁷¹ though I would not wish to be severe, yet I cannot think a man who wears a light sort of mulberry-coloured “don’t mentions,” from a wish to look waspish, can be any great shakes. The rest of his character may be very good perhaps, but I can hardly think so under these circumstances.

Your Bess has been making sad work of it indeed, and I wish she had not been promised to Sister, for the Granthams are enquiring everywhere for a dog of that description, and I think Bess would find this place pleasanter than Eastcombe. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

NEWBY HALL [1818].

MY DEAREST SISTER, Your pride must be getting up again, I should imagine, and I must give it a little epistolary pat on the back (what a remarkably odd clever expression) to keep it all smooth.

My illness was remarkably opportune, inasmuch as it began at Studley,⁷² and which was so uncommonly dull, that the impossibility of dining down was an immense advantage that I had over the rest of society. We were nineteen at dinner every day. We were all immensely formal in the evening.

The house is but a bad one in the old-fashioned way, and my room was peculiarly liable to murder and that sort of accident, a large dark green bed with black feathers on the top, stuck in a deep alcove, and on one side of it an enormous dark closet, quite full of banditti I fancy, and all the rest of the room actually swarming with ghosts I know, only I was much too sleepy to lay awake and look at them.

Mrs. Lawrence has an unhappy turn for music without any very remarkable genius, and we played 150 pages of the dryest Duetts in the Dussek and Pleyel style without even changing our time, or rising into a forte, or sinking into a piano, and minding every Repeat and Da Capo in the book.

On Wednesday Lord Grantham and Mr. Graham went on some Yeomanry business to Leeds, on Thursday we came home to my great joy. Adieu, my dearest sister; this has been written in a confusion of tongues, and I cannot make it any longer by any means. Ever your most affec.

E. EDEN.

P.S.– I have got a beautiful black cloth gown for two guineas, so fine you never saw the like

Emily Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

NEWBY HALL,

November [1818].

MY DEAREST SISTER, We are now quite alone for the first time since I came – that is, the Wynns are here still, but they are part of being alone, and we have never before been so few, and I must say that it is uncommonly pleasant after so much company. The mere comfort of being able to go about the house with rough hair, or a tumbled frill, and in an old black gown, is not to be despised, and there is some pleasure in taking up a book in the evening and yawning over it, and then saying anything that comes uppermost, without thinking. We are very busy, dressing little dolls for Lord Grantham’s Theatre, which is one of the most ingenious pieces of mechanism I ever saw, and one of the prettiest things altogether. There is to be a grand representation to-night, and we have been rehearsing all the last week. It takes nine people to manage the scenery, figures, and music, and we all of us lose our tempers at it regularly every morning. I act the orchestra, and whilst I am playing away to the best of my power the music belonging to any particular scene, Anne⁷³ and Lady Grantham, who manage the figures, get into some hobble, and the music is finished before the action to which it belongs is begun, so that Harlequin and Columbine have to dance out without any time to assist them. I believe nothing in the world could ruffle Lord Grantham’s temper; but these theatrical difficulties go nearer to it than anything else, and while he is explaining to Lady Grantham that the figures will move if she takes pains, and to me that the music is quite long enough if I will but play slower, it may be rather provoking that Freddy⁷⁴ should let down the wrong trap-door, Anne set her sleeves on fire in one of the lamps, Mary⁷⁵ turn the cascade the wrong way, so that the water runs up instead of down; Thomas the footman should let down a light blue sky to a dark moonlight scene, and Shaw should forget the back scene altogether, so that his coat and buttons and white waistcoat are figuring away in the distance of the Fire King’s Palace. However, patience and scolding have overcome these little difficulties, and our last rehearsal was perfect.

Lady Melville⁷⁶ and her children were here for five days last week. I do not know exactly what I thought of her. She is too clever not to be rather pleasant, and too argumentative not to be very tiresome, and altogether I do not think I liked her. But her visit took place very soon after I had heard of poor Sir S. Romilly,⁷⁷ and I was too much shocked and too unhappy really to like anybody, particularly a person who insisted upon discussing the whole thing constantly, and in a political way. I think I have never been more shocked by anything that was not a private calamity – I mean, that did not concern one’s family or one’s self – than I was by this, and poor Captain Feilding⁷⁸ who was here, and who was a private friend of his, was so completely overcome that I was very sorry for him too. Altogether it is a horrible history, and only shows how very little we can know what is good for man in this life, when we were all saying some months ago that this would be the proudest year of Sir S. Romilly’s life. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Lord Auckland to Miss Eden

BRUTON STREET,

Monday, November 1818.

MY DEAR EMILY, I have this moment seen an agent of Mrs. Wildman, a rich Kentish widow, and she has agreed to take Eden Farm on my own terms, which gives us a prospect of being a little more settled and comfortable.

She is to have it for seven years and pay £600 a year. And now I must look out for a house in town, which you will find pretty near ready for you when you arrive. I am in a great bustle and hurry, for we are all alive with this election, though with the melancholy impression of poor Romilly’s death it is difficult to rouse people. Hobhouse⁷⁹ has behaved so ill that it is right to try to beat him, but I fear that Lamb⁸⁰ is too late. He will certainly be low on the poll for the first week, but it is possible that afterwards he may recover. In the meantime, people are very busy, and none of our friends are sanguine. Your affectionate brother,

AD.

Lord Auckland to Miss Eden

[November] 1818.

MY DEAR EMILY, Lamb carried his election to-day by 604, and made a sort of a speech saying that now he was their member, and they were his constituents, and that they would soon learn to be friends. He was a little hooted, but not much more than usual; but all our foolish friends appeared to cheer him with cockades in their hats, and all was uproar and riot and confusion and pelting and brickbats and mud, and it is lucky none of them were very seriously hurt. They all arrived covered with dirt to the west end of the town, and the mob at their heels, for they were too gallant not to stop to be occasionally pelted.

I never saw such a scene. Your friend Graham⁸¹ looked as if he had just come out from the pillory; Sefton, Morton, and twenty others in the same plight.

Report says that one servant is nearly killed; I hope it is not true. Ferguson had a blow on his head, and Mr. Charlton another more serious one; but I hear of nothing worse. It makes but an ugly triumph for our great victory. What a glorious debate was yesterday’s!

You will live at No. 30 Lower Grosvenor Street, the only house I can get, small but convenient, and I think we shall make it do well enough. Ever affectionately yours,

AD.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

NEWBY HALL [1818].

MY DEAREST SISTER, …Mr. Ellis left this place yesterday, so I could not give him your message. I think he enjoyed the latter part of his visit here very much, as there was a very pleasant set of gentlemen, and Mr. Douglas, who is more amusing than ever. We had besides them, two Mr. Lascelles’s,⁸² one “a cunning hunter” and the other very gentlemanlike and pleasant; Mr. Duncombe, a pretty little London Dandy, rather clever in his way; Captain Cust,⁸³ a soldierly sort of person, and a kind of Lusus Naturae (is that sense do you think?), because he is pleasant and well-looking though he is a Cust, and Mr. Petre, very rich and very stupid, so that we had a very proper mixture of character…

We are all hunting mad in these parts, and I am afraid that when I come to Eastcombe I shall be a great expense to you with my hunters and grooms. I have already made great progress in the language of the art.

I have heard a new name for the Miss Custs, in case you are tired of the Dusty Camels; by uniting their names of Brownlow and Cust, they become Brown Locusts, which is a very expressive title I think. I remain, ever yr. very affec. sister,

E. EDEN.

CHAPTER II
1819-1820

Miss Eden to the Dowager Lady Buckinghamshire

NEWBY HALL,

Sunday, February 14 [1819].

MY DEAREST SISTER, I was very sorry to hear of the unfortunate state in which you have been, and in which Sarah [Lady Sarah Robinson] is, as I have a sufficient recollection of the Mumps to know what a very disagreeable disorder they are, or they is.

We have had a spirt of company for the last three days, but they all very kindly walked off yesterday, and as it is wrong to dwell upon past evils, I spare you an account of most of them.

There were a Mr. and Mrs. Winyard amongst them, who were very pleasant. He was in the army, and is now in the Church, and though they are the sort of people who have a child every year, and talk about their governess, and though she very naturally imagined, that because she was absent, the high wind would blow away the little tittupy parsonage, and the ten precious children, yet they really were very agreeable.

He sang so very beautifully though, that it made all his other good qualities quite superfluous, and I am convinced it would have touched your unmusical heart to hear him sing some of the Irish Melodies.

I have some thoughts of writing an Essay on Education for the good of my country, and I think the little Robinsons⁸⁴ will in most cases serve for example, and I must say that, tho’ children, they are very nice things, and uncommonly well managed.

If at any time you will let me know how you are going on, the smallest intelligence will be thankfully received. Ever, my dear Sister, your very affect.

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

LONGLEAT [WARMINSTER, WILTS],

Monday, March 15, 1819.

MY DEAREST SISTER, This place affords so very little to say, that if this prove to be a long letter, of which at present I do not see much chance, I pity from my heart your feelings of weariness at the end of it. There is nobody here but the Campbells, but I imagine that the family of Thynne are much pleasanter out of a crowd. At least, we are not the least formal or dull, which from the account Mary and Fanny used to give I thought would have been the case.

The magnificence of the house far surpasses anything I have ever seen, and with all that, it is one of the most comfortable abodes possible. It is inconvenient too in some respects, at least to me, who have an unfortunate knack of losing my way even in a house that may consist of only ten rooms, so that I cannot stir without Fanny or some other guide.

There are several roads to our rooms. The servants make it, I think, about five and twenty minutes’ walk, a little more than a mile and a quarter; but then that is a very intricate way.

Lady Bath⁸⁵ is very much out of spirits at times about Lord Weymouth,⁸⁶ who is going on very ill; but she is always very pleasant and very good-humoured…

Lady Elizabeth⁸⁷ and Lady Louisa⁸⁸ both make themselves very pleasant.

We leave this place Saturday night, probably, which I am very sorry for, but George must be in town Monday, and therefore it is necessary to be there Saturday. However, he is first going to see poor Lord Ilchester at Weymouth,⁸⁹ and is to rejoin me on the road, so our plans depend a little on Lord Ilchester’s. London will be a little dark and dismal-looking this weather, but the FitzGeralds are coming up to be at the Meeting of Parliament, and I shall be rather glad to meet Pam.⁹⁰ Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Pamela FitzGerald to Miss Eden

[1819.]

So you are not dead at all, Emmy! I am very glad, for I can’t spare you. I have been what the people call in a great deal of trouble. Aunt⁹¹ frightened me, she chose to neglect her cough so long, that when at last on her complaining of pain in her side I bullied her, and sent for Dundas, he found she has a considerable degree of inflammation on her chest, and she was to be bled directly; the Apothecary out of the way, never came home till night. Aunt made a monstrous piece of work between fright and fever, and cried out, and the candles flared, and Baker stamped, and I who thought myself so courageous, I was turned upside down with the whole business.

Lucy⁹² is staying at Mrs. Seymour’s, luckily out of the mess; she went over for a ball Monday, and Mrs. Seymour has kept her on there.

I had a letter from Edward⁹³ a few days ago, written from the Slough of Despond; he has joined his regiment at Lichfield, and you may imagine the transition from Paris, poor darling. I would give the whole world to go and comfort him.

Emmy, don’t you know what I mean? But when anything one loves is unhappy, it seems more particularly to belong to one.

He comes to us the 11th, for a few days, which I look to with some anxiety, after that taste, or rather distaste, we had of each other in London.

I am looking about for a conveyance to Town, because I want to buy a hat; at present I am all shaven and shorn, and shall be reduced to wear a paper cap, if I don’t take care.

I am obliged to write with this pen, which is like a Chinese chop stick, because I am in Aunt’s room, and she is asleep, and I dare not begin that quick rustle, which disturbs and wakes a Patient as much as the roar of a cannon, and which would be unavoidable in a hunt for quill or knife; as it is I have some trouble to keep the paper from crackling, and the few books d’alentour from throwing themselves head-long off the table, which is the way of all books the moment one drops asleep.

I have had sad fits of low spirits. Spring makes one languid to a degree, that the air is a weight upon one.

The Assizes were delightful. I don’t think it right to carve out futurity for oneself, or else I really think I should like never to marry anybody who does not wear a Lawyer’s Wig. It is proper, it adorneth the outward and visible man; those thin terrier faces, those hollow cheeks and deep eyes, are precious and lovely.

I was amused at the younglings, whose callow smooth faces look all the younger for the wig. Seriously, the interest of the most important cases to me was inexpressible. It is the reality which presses on one’s heart, and makes an impression far deeper than the utmost stretch of imaginary sorrow can ever produce.

I have seen no creature, and have established my character Bearish in the neighbourhood, so they are content to let me alone…

Mr. Peel⁹⁴ could not help marrying that girl who is silly; those things fit, and are so far satisfactory they establish some sort of system in the goings on of the world, and give body to speculation. Wise men love fools.

I had done writing, and then as usual a whole heap of things came lumbering about my head. I had a high letter from poor Eliza Fitz.⁹⁵ She has given up her dearest hopes on earth, and if she should be obliged to marry any one else, miserable, wretched, homeless, she trusts she will do her duty and be a good wife; that’s the résumé of four criss-cross sheets of paper. I wrote her a very reasonable letter to comfort her, for she is painfully ashamed of herself, poor girl, and there is no use in that, so I turned her over to the bright side. She has only fallen in that common error of whipping up her feelings with words, and they never can keep pace even, one will always be before the other.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

June 4 [1819].

MY DEAREST SISTER, Mary went out last night to Mrs. Baring’s⁹⁶ ball, which was not likely to do her much good, and is completely “frappée en haut” (Sir W. Wynn’s translation of “knocked up”) with headache and fatigue this morning. Dissipation is not likely to agree with her, certainly, but then, Sister, think of the pineapples and strawberries and ices and temporary rooms and magnificent hangings and beautiful flowers at Mrs. Baring’s.

I wish I was a rich old banker; but then I would not have, or own, so many fellow-creatures as the Barings do. I keep my comforts a little more to myself… We have had a most alarming visit from Rogers the Poet this morning, the very recollection of which would make my hair, black pins, combs and all, stand on end, if they had ever subsided since his first appearance. I never saw such a satirical, odious wretch, and I was calculating the whole time, from what he was saying of other people, what he could find ill-natured enough to say of us. I had never seen him before, and trust I never shall again. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire

June 10, 1819.

MY DEAREST SISTER, You will, I hope, have more pleasure or rather happiness than I can yet teach myself to feel, in hearing that our dearest Mary is going to be married to Charles Drummond. It cannot be a surprise, of course, to any one, as he has certainly taken no pains to conceal his attachment; but the objections arising from want of fortune, we had not hoped could have been so well overcome as they are, quite to the satisfaction of his friends and hers also. It was almost settled at Lady Darnley’s fancy ball on Monday, and concluded by letter (such a very pretty letter!) on Tuesday morning. Mary and I went down to Langley⁹⁷ for an hour for a little advice, as George was gone to his Committee; then we saw George; then Mr. D.; and, in short, everything went on smoothly, and as such things usually do go on. George has seen the old Drummonds, who were very good-humoured and quite agreeable. In short, I should believe we were all amazingly happy, only I know I have seldom felt so wretched. She will be such a dreadful loss to me! But I will only think of the advantages of the case; and George is so pleased, and it is altogether a very desirable thing for all of us, besides the real chief point of her happiness, which she ought to find, and of which she has so reasonable a prospect. The Post Bell is ringing. Mary would have written herself, but he is here, and this is their first real conversation. Sarah will excuse my not writing to her to-day, I hope, and I really have had great difficulty in making out this one letter, and we have told nobody else yet. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden

THAMES DITTON,

Friday, August 13, 1819.

MY DEAREST EMILY, I was really sorry not to be able to accept Lady Buckinghamshire’s invitation, but you see it could not be, for Lucy sets off Tuesday morning, and as Aunt Soph⁹⁸ never parted with her before in her life, I must stay and comfort her…

Think of Sister liking me! I know of few phenomena that ever more surprised me, for I concluded she had set me down as wild and scapegracish. However, it was certainly reciprocal, for she certainly took my fancy very much.