g Story about very little. Woodbridge again.

A Letter from Mowbray Donne told me that you had removed to some house
in--Connaught Place? {127a}--but he did not name the number.

Valentia's wedding comes on: perhaps you will be of the Party. {127b} I
think it would be one more of Sorrow than of Gladness to me: but perhaps
that may be the case with most Bridals.

It is very cold here: ice of nights: but my Tulips and Anemones hold up
still: and Nightingales sing. Somehow, I don't care for those latter at
Night. They ought to be in Bed like the rest of us. This seems talking
for the sake of being singular: but I have always felt it, singular or
not.

And I am yours always

E. F.G.

XLVIII.

[_June_, 1877.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I only write now on the express condition (which I understand you to
accept) that you will not reply till you are in Switzerland. I mean, of
course, within any reasonable time. Your last Letter is not a happy one
*: but the record of your first Memoir cannot fail to interest and touch
me.

I surmise--for you do not say so--that you are alone in London now: then,
you must get away as soon as you can; and I shall be very glad to hear
from yourself that you are in some green Swiss Valley, with a blue Lake
before you, and snowy mountain above.

I must tell you that, my Nieces being here--good, pious, and tender, they
are too--(but one of them an Invalid, and the other devoted to attend
her) they make but little change in my own way of Life. They live by
themselves, and I only see them now and then in the Garden--sometimes not
five minutes in the Day. But then I am so long used to Solitude. And
there is an end of that Chapter.

I have your Gossip bound up: the binder backed it with Black, which I
don't like (it was his doing, not mine), but you say that your own only
Suit is Sables now. I am going to lend it to a very admirable Lady who
is going to our ugly Sea-side, with a sick Brother: only I have pasted
over one column--_which_, I leave you to guess at.

I think I never told you--what is the fact, however--that I had wished to
dedicate Agamemnon to you, but thought I could not do so without my own
name appended. Whereas, I could, very simply, as I saw afterwards when
too late. If ever he is reprinted I shall (unless you forbid) do as I
desired to do: for, if for no other reason, he would probably never have
been published but for you. Perhaps he had better [hav