From Emma Darwin to G. H. Darwin 9 September [1888]

My dear George

I am very sorry to hear of your bilious attack. I wrote to you to Munich after receiving your tel. & I sent off my letter to Innsbruck yesterday after receiving your card. Elinor & Albert Dicey came yesterday. He was in full talk w. Ellen & Elinor & I, in 2 duets. She drew me a plan of her house & garden which must be nice & snug, & it is dismal work for her having to leave it every winter. They stay till Wed. & then go to Malvern for a few weeks— It was very cold yesterday, & Albert chortled in his joy at the sight of a good fire in their bedroom— Elinor is better but m. plagued w. eczema—

Gwenny had a g^t grief yesterday about taking off a pair of cricketting shoes I had got for her to run on the grass with. It was despair, but Helen having begun felt bound to continue. She told me afterwards she w^d not have tried if she had thought G. w^d have minded— At last I pacified her by promising she sh^d have them on to run on the grass after her walk— She & Frances agree v. well & she likes better having her dinner upstairs w. her & eats better. Bessy & Rachel had some beaut days at the Chalet & went an exped of 9 h^rs—Rasmus walking (& talking no doubt) all the way—

They had many halts & meals so did not go very far—

She speaks of the place as most beaut— when you can see M^t Blanc. They went on Thursday to Turin & L. Maggiore—& the Horaces left yesterday for home, going straight to Cam. Frank & Newton are staying at Old M^r Leonard Blomfield (quite brisk at 88)   Frank does not feel M^r Dyer as friendly as usual, & Ellen thinks he has set his mind on Frank not getting the Prof-ship, & on M^r Gardner being the succesful one—but I believe they are reckoning their eggs long before they are hatched— I am not sorry that F. sh^d not quite trust M^r D— as I can never think v. well of him after his treatment of Sir J.

I had quite a prosperous card from Hen from Aix. When I was so frightened about the Dijon accident I thought of your tel to Maud at Queens Town wh. was so à propos— Bernard is v. happy & pleasant & good to the little ones. He is now absorbed in a thick quarto on cricket out of the "Badminton Library" birthday present from Hen. Your attack put me in mind of one of your fathers violent attacks of vomitting just at the end of a stay at Moor Park wh. always did him so m good. I have just heard from Hen. from Bride les Bains. It is a poky little place w. 2 hotels & a rushing river. A beaut drive from Aix, getting bare & poor towards Bride— They met the Ernests near Aix after a long walk (Ernest quite domesticated—

yours dear G. & M— E. Darwin