what we should want. I have just
been looking over a list of four pages long in Ellen's handwriting.
These things ought to come by the next vessel, or part of them at
least. When tired of that I began to read some pages of "my book"
intending to write some more, but went on reading for pleasure. I
often do this, and find it very interesting indeed. It does not get
on fast, though I have written about one volume and a half. It's
full of music, poverty, disputing, politics, and original views of
life. I can't for the life of me bring the lover into it, nor tell
what he's to do when he comes. Of the men generally I can never tell
what they'll do next. The women I understand pretty well, and rare
_tracasserie_ there is among them--they are perfectly _feminine_ in
that respect at least.

'I am just now in a state of famine. No books and no news from
England for this two months. I am thinking of visiting a circulating
library from sheer dulness. If I had more time I should get
melancholy. No one can prize activity more than I do. I never am
long without it than a gloom comes over me. The cloud seems to be
always there behind me, and never quite out of sight but when I keep
on at a good rate. Fortunately, the more I work the better I like
it. I shall take to scrubbing the floor before it's dirty and
polishing pans on the outside in my old age. It is the only thing
that gives me an appetite for dinner.

'PAG.

'Give my love to Ellen Nussey.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'WELLINGTON, N. Z., 8_th_ _Jan_. 1857.

'DEAR ELLEN,--A few days ago I got a letter from you, dated 2nd May
1856, along with some patterns and fashion-book. They seem to have
been lost somehow, as the box ought to have come by the _Hastings_,
and only now makes its appearance by the _Philip Lang_. It has come
very _apropos_ for a new year's gift, and the patterns were not
opened twenty-four hours before a silk cape was cut out by one of
them. I think I made a very impertinent request when I asked you to
give yourself so much trouble. The poor woman for whom I wanted them
is now a first-rate dressmaker--her drunken husband, who was her main
misfortune, having taken himself off and n