ghts, and therefore be there
all next week, and only return to London next Saturday week. This was in
contemplation when I came here, but had not been determined on until
to-day.

I have had a very affectionate letter from Lady Dacre, asking me to go
down to the Hoo and stay some time with them, which I will do between
some of my coming engagements.... No, my dear Harriet, you cannot
imagine, and I cannot say, how I shrink from demonstrating a great deal
of the affection that I feel; there are no words or sign adequate to it
that I should not be reluctant to use, and I think this is at variance
with the unhesitating and vehement expression of thought and opinion,
and mere impression that is natural to me: but we are all more or less
compounded of contradictions, and I _more_ than _less_.

At the Exeter Station, coming down to this place, an obliging omnibus or
coach driver offered to carry me to Torquay if I was bound thither.
Wouldn't it have been nice if I had said _Yes_, and you and Dorothy had
still been there? but you weren't, so I said _No_.... Both the Grevilles
are friends of ours. Henry has been very intimate with Adelaide for a
long time. He has a great many good qualities, and, though essentially a
society man, has a good deal of principle; he is not very clever, but
bright and pleasant, and very amiable and charming. His brother Charles
has better brains, and is altogether a cleverer person. He is a man of
the world, and more selfishly worldly, I think, than Henry, whose
standard of right is considerably the higher of the two; indeed, Charles
Greville's _right_ always appears to me a mere synonym for _expedient_,
and when I tell him so, he invariably says "they are the same thing,"
which I do not believe. He is, unfortunately, deaf, but excellent
company in spite of that. I met him the day before I left London, at
dinner at Lady Essex's, and he told me he and Lord de Maulay were going
to start next week on a riding tour through England, beginning with
Devonshire. I think it very probable that I shall see him in Exeter next
week, as he is to be at the Duke of Bedford's in that neighborhood. He
talked eloquently of the beauty of the scenery they were going through,
and very seriously urged me to join their party, and ride over England
with them, saying it would be a delightfully pleasant expedition--of
which I have no doubt, or of the entire propriety of my joining it, and
"cavalcading" through Great Britain