I have just been interrupted by the arrival of the Lansdowne children, who are come here for the afternoon to make Lady Lansdowne's excuse for not coming to take leave before she goes out of town. The little girl[52] is the prettiest little thing I ever saw--the smallest child--looking like a fairy _for all the world_.

_July 6, 1815_.

We were all very sorry to hear of poor Comte Meerveldt's[53] death, for _her_ distress must be very great. Little Rodolphe will now be a great consolation to her. Lady Selkirk has had one very short note from poor Lady Delancey.[54] It was almost too composed to be comfortable to her friends. She said her husband had died at Waterloo, and was buried the morning she wrote, at Brussels, and she wished Lady Selkirk would have his picture done immediately by Heaphy,[55] as that was the only thing she could now live for. She made no complaint, except saying that she had had but one very happy week at Brussels, which was over, and that she was sure Lady Selkirk, at least, would feel for such a very wretched creature. She is expected at Penge to-morrow. There is an odd mixture of joy and sorrow in that house, as Lady K. Douglas[56] is married there to-day, which is rather astonishing, considering the state her family is in....

_Miss Eden to Lord Auckland_.

EDEN FARM, _August 11 [1815]_.

MY DEAREST GEORGE, I put a most excellent joke in these two first lines, but was obliged to efface them from my fear of the police, but it is inserted in sympathetic Ink, and if you will hold it for 3/4 of an hour by a very hot fire, rubbing it violently the whole time without intermission, with the back of your hat and one hand, I daresay you will find it.

We are much as you left us. I cannot buy any sheep yet, for the price has risen in the market prodigiously, and we must wait a little, but Walsh is to go to Smithfield this week to see how things are. In your directions you left out a very important word, whether the ferrule should be fixed in the bottom, or the seat of the Tilbury. I say the former, and Mama the latter. One makes the umbrella too low, the other too high, but by a little arrangement of mine, too long to explain, I have made it the right height for myself, bonnet, feathers, and all, and it will altogether be very comfortable.

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.

Madden[57] 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 Let.i.tia 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 Sarah[60] 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 Louisa[61] 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 Byron[62] 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 circ.u.mstance of never being fatigued with any quant.i.ty 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, n.o.body 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 Osbornes[64] 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 Grantham[65] 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 Sydney[67] 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.