ng _very_ pretty, though it must be
allowed to be beautiful after Somersetshire. We arrived here almost
in the dark, and were besieged by the crowd of disinterested
tradespeople, who _would_ attend us through the town to our house, to
help to unload the carriages. This was not a particularly agreeable
reception in spite of its cordiality; and the circumstance of there
being not a human being in our house, and not even a rushlight
burning, did not reassure us. People were tired of expecting us every
day for three weeks. Nearly the whole way from Honiton to this place
is a descent. Poor dear Bummy said she thought we were going into
the _bowels of the earth_, but suspect she thought we were going
much deeper. Between you and me, she does not seem _delighted_ with
Sidmouth; but her spirits are a great deal better, and in time she
will, I dare say, be better pleased. _We_ like very much what we have
seen of it. The town is small and not superfluously clean, but, of
course, the respectable houses are not a part of the town. Ours is one
which the Grand Duchess Helena had, not at all _grand_, but extremely
comfortable and cheerful, with a splendid sea view in front, and
pleasant green, hills and trees behind. The drawing-room's four
windows all look to the sea, and I am never tired of looking out of
them. I was doing so, with a most hypocritical book before me, when
your letter arrived, and I _felt_ all that you said in it. I always
thought that the sea was the sublimest object in nature. Mont
Blanc--Niagara must be nothing to it. _There_, the Almighty's form
glasses itself in tempests--and not only in tempests, but in calm--in
space, in eternal motion, in eternal regularity. How can we look at
it, and consider our puny sorrows, and not say, 'We are dumb--because
_Thou_ didst it'? Indeed, dear Mrs. Martin, we must feel every hour,
and we shall feel every year, that what He did is _well done_--and not
only well, but mercifully.

Mr. and Mrs. H----, with whom papa is slightly acquainted, have
called upon us, and shown us many kind attentions. They are West India
people, not very polished, but certainly _very_ good-natured. We hear
that the place is extremely full and gay; but this is, of course, only
an _on dit_ to us at present. I have been riding a donkey two or three
times, and enjoy very much going to the edge of the sea. The air has
made me sleep more soundly than I have done for some time, and I dare
say it will do me a g