From Emma Darwin to W. E. Darwin [12 August 1860]

My dear William

errata aghast not agast

We have done little else but lament about the weather all week. We had however 2 dry days together & a good deal of miserable looking hay was taken in. Frank is quite in high spirits about school not that that goes for much. Etty keeps much the same. On her good days she gets up twice a day. She sat up last night on the sofa till 9.30  Her chief plague now is the having her stomach very much disordered. I really quite dislike the looks of the flower garden with the roses all looking as if they had been boiled. George has been riding a little with Frank on the pony which is so fat that a man called out to him "Why you have a'most starved your hosrse to death". & it is hard work to get him on.

The last event at Hartfield was a large snake (not an adder) having taken up its abode in the garden & several of the party saw it at diff^t times & Eliza the little maid stepped upon it & screeched awfully I believe.

The Peters are come back "looking as impudent as ever" M^rs Evans tells me. I believe they have paid most of their debts. Poor Bessy Harding has been dangerously ill with cholera at Uncle Ras. I am going to London tomorrow to Mr Robinson & I shall call & see her. I don't think I have any more news so Goodbye my dear old man

yours E. D.