g cold drizzle,
like the defilement and weeping of irretrievable shame, and sin, and
sorrow; and the whole aspect of the place struck me with dismay. The
house was shut up, and looked absolutely deserted, not a soul stirring
about it; the garden dismantled and out of order. Altogether, the
contrast of the whole scene to that which I remembered so bright,
cheerful, gay, and lovely, combined with the cause of its present
condition, struck me as beyond measure mournful....

You ask after the welfare of my children's nurse, Anne; and I will tell
you something comically characteristic both of the individual and her
nation. Here at Bowood she eats alone with the children, as she has been
in the habit of doing at home; but at Worsley the little ones dined with
us at our luncheon-table, and she ate in the housekeeper's room. Not
knowing myself exactly what would be the place assigned to an American
nursery-maid in the society of the servants' hall at Worsley, I inquired
of her whether she was comfortable and well-treated. She said, "Oh, yes,
perfectly well;" but there seemed to me by her manner to be something or
other amiss, and upon my inquiring further, she said, "Well, then, Mrs.
Butler, I'll tell you what it is: I do wish they'd let me dine at the
lower table. Everything is very good and very fine, to be sure, and the
people are very kind and civil to me, but I cannot bear to have men in
livery and maid-servants standing up behind my chair waiting on me, and
that's the truth of it." She said this with an air of such sincere
discomfort that it was quite evident to me that if, in common with her
countrymen, she thought herself "as good as anybody," she certainly was
not seduced by the glories of the upper table into forgetting that any
one was as good as she.

I was spared the discomfort of having the children in another house; for
either Lady Francis has fewer guests than she expected, or she had
contrived to manage better than she had supposed she could, for they
were lodged under the same roof with me, and quite near enough for
comfort or convenience....

Thank you for your kindness in copying that account of Cavanagh for me;
thank you, too, for Archbishop Whately's book, which I read immediately.
There is nothing in it that I have not read before, nor certainly
anything whatever to alter my opinion that the accumulation of enormous
wealth in the hands of individuals who transmit it to their eldest sons,
who inherit it