You should have
heard Nora begging to go. She has gained her point, you see;" and then
follows a description of the little house at Ryde, of their visitors and
friends, the books they were to read, etc. During this visit Bessie once
walked from Ryde to Shanklin, and was proud of the achievement.

The Bishop's house in London at this time was in Green Street, Grosvenor
Square. He and Mrs. Gilbert with some daughters were there in the early
part of the year 1846, and Bessie was left in the post of honour, at
home. The father writes to her without making any allowance for
blindness. She is to give orders and arrange for their return just as
Mary would have done.

MY DEAR BESSIE--I write to you as Mrs. House, Mrs. Pomona, Mrs.
Flora, _i.e._ as having, under your aunt and Miss Deiss, sovereign
rule in the domestic, horticultural, and floral departments at
Chichester, but not as Mrs. Ceres, as with respect to the farm I
reserve the rule therein to John and Symonds, and Smoker and
myself, which may account for the bad condition things in that
department are in.... Now, in your domestic department let me
suggest to you to order preparations for the return of the
veritable heads of the family, possibly on Friday next, to dinner,
but you may expect to hear again. Then, in the horticultural, know
that a tub of regent potatoes, and eke a tub of blues, containing
each about a sack, may daily be expected. They are to be used as
seed at your and Holmes's discretion. Those which are not so used
you may direct to be put from time to time into a pot and saved for
dinner. In your floral department I do not presume to give any
hint; the greater will be your responsibility if either violets are
drooping or snowdrops and crocuses not in sufficient abundance.
Poor me! I am afraid they are all over, blossomed and gone while I
have been smoke-dried here. But mind you show me something when I
come, or I may prove a rat without a tail. Pray, why do none of you
little pusses write to me? I desire I may have an olla podrida, a
bit of something from every one, without delay. How do you think I
am to get on here all by myself? Yes, indeed! Pray, look to it,
Mrs. House, and mind your P's and Q's, and do not laugh, but let me
have my letter from all in a cluster, and I daresay in a clatter
too forthwith. So no more at pre