From Emma Darwin to W. E. Darwin [24 or 31 October 1859]

My dear William

Mrs Norman did invite you to spend 2 or 3 days there after you were gone. Mr Kirk is always pleasant & cordial. I think you used to like Jenner. It was very honest of Montague Lubbock not promising too much.

Your father has been very uncomf. & quite confined to the house with a furious inflamed ancle & foot & then it flew up into his face & swelled up his eyes so that he could hardly see. However D^r Smith says it is all right & he only hopes it may continue for a month & that it is likely to do him great good. He hopes it may diminish enough to allow him to walk out a little. At present he can only hobble. Miss Butler your father's friend of Moor Park is gone which is a great loss to us as she is very pleasant & lively & kind, but we lead rather a gay life here & people from the Establishment are often calling on us & this evening a M^r Robinson a pleasant clergyman at Sevenoaks drank tea with us quite in a family way.

We have got Parslow & two maids & a comfortable house & Emily Thorley. I am quite awfully well & strong & eat immensely as we all do, & the mutton is something peculiar. We have had bitter cold but I am glad to see the rain tonight, tho' we enjoyed a long walk up the hill in the frost today & along a rushing brook with little waterfalls. Frank found a dead grouse to his great delight. It seemed quite fat & fresh, so no doubt it was shot & we mean to cook it  We almost killed poor little Emily with the walk.

We have a small supply of lessons which saves much ennui. I wish we had Miss Thorley for the walking sake & Lizzy, but Emily is the pleasanter of the two. We shall certainly stay a month longer & your father says he will stay till Xmas if it keeps on doing him good. His stomach is quite wonderful certainly. Please send this letter to George & tell him we will send a post office order in a day or two for his allowance & Guy Faux

Etty is well & I have some hopes that it may give her some vigour but there is no difference in her walking as yet.

Goodbye +my dear old man.

I am afraid John Thorley is thoroughly idle. His sisters seem very fearful of his not passing. It is too bad of him when such an effort was made by his mother to send him to college.

Yours E.D.

Effie is as jolly as can be only very thin.