e--and my
blue Spectacles, which I can only discard as yet when looking on the
Grass and young Leaves.

I duly sent your Book to Henry Kemble, as you desired: and received a
very polite Note from him in acknowledgment.

And now my house is being pulled about my Ears by preparations for my
Nieces next week. And, instead of my leaving the coast clear to Broom
and Dust-pan, I believe that Charles Keene will be here from Friday to
Monday. As he has long talked of coming, I do not like to put him off
now he has really proposed to come, and we shall scramble on somehow. And
I will get a Carriage and take him a long Drive into the Country where it
is greenest. He is a very good fellow, and has lately lost his Mother,
to whom he was a very pious Son; a man who can _reverence_, although a
Droll in _Punch_.

You will believe that I wish you all well among your Mountains. George
Crabbe has been (for Health's sake) in Italy these last two months, and
wrote me his last Note from the Lago Maggiore. My Sister Jane Wilkinson
talks of coming over to England this Summer: but I think her courage will
fail her when the time comes. If ever you should go to, or near,
Florence, she would be sincerely glad to see you, and to talk over other
Days. She is not at all obtrusively religious: and I think must have
settled abroad to escape some of the old Associations in which she took
so much part, to but little advantage to herself or others.

You know that I cannot write to you when you are abroad unless you tell
me whither I am to direct. And you probably will not do that: but I do
not, and shall [not] cease to be yours always and truly

E. F.G.

XCVI.

[_Nov._ 1881.]

MY DEAR LADY:

I was not quite sure, from your letter, whether you had received mine
directed to you in the Cavendish Square Hotel:--where your Nephew told me
you were to be found. It is no matter otherwise than that I wish you to
know that I had not only enquired if you were returned from abroad, but
had written whither I was told you were to be found. Of which enough.

I am sorry you are gone again to Westminster, to which I cannot reconcile
myself as to our old London. Even Bloomsbury recalls to me the pink May
which used to be seen in those old Squares--sixty years ago. But 'enfin,
voila qui est fait.' You know where that comes from. I have not lately
been in company with my old dear: Annie Thackeray's Book {227a} is a
pretty thing for Ladies