North
Foreland lighthouse. That and the sea and air are our only lions. It is
a very rough little place, but a very pleasant one, and you will make it
pleasanter than ever to me.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]

BROADSTAIRS, KENT, _July 11th, 1851._

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

I am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology
for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circumstances I
could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that I have
more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. If I were
not the gentlest of men I should do it!

Poor dear Haldimand, I have thought of him so often. That kind of decay
is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that I have no words to
express my compassion and sorrow. When I was at Abbotsford, I saw in a
vile glass case the last clothes Scott wore. Among them an old white
hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy,
purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. It so
embodied Lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write,
and laid down his pen and cried, that it associated itself in my mind
with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. I fancy Haldimand
in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and
remembering the happy hours we have passed with him, and his goodness
and truth. I think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the
moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. Pray tell us if you hear
more of him. We really loved him.

To go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so
ago I took Charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river
gipsying. I secured the services of Charley's godfather (an old friend
of mine, and a noble fellow with boys), and went down to Slough,
accompanied by two immense hampers from Fortnum and Mason, on (I
believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics.

It cleared before we got to Slough; but the boys, who had got up at four
(we being due at eleven), had horrible misgivings that we might not
come, in consequence of which we saw them looking into the carriages
before us, all face. They seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be
all face; their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent. When
they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were up