My dear William
I was very glad of your letter & I want to know if you were alive enough for the rowing on Sat. Ronny came on Sat. with his father & Eva & the ball seems to have been very brilliant. I am glad you were not too fierce about Cicely. I can't think who was so treacherous as to repeat her sally.
Ronny was obliged to go back to his work yesterday evening & he walked off to his train in such a leisurely way, it was thought he wd miss it.
We find Miss Butler a very pleasant easy visitor with a great deal of conversation. Yesterday evening we sat trying to turn a table for half an hour with great perseverance but with no result. & afterwards she tried mesmerizing Franky in which I think she wd have succeeded but as he is such a nervous subject I didn not much encourage it. I believe Ellen Tollet & Minny will come here for the Elijah Poor Etty is very poorly again but I hope she will be brisker by that time. Mr Edwards horse is a failure & kicking so now we have another on trial.
Goodbye my dear old man.
Status: Draft transcription
This transcript was produced as a side-product of the work of the Darwin Correspondence Project and may not have been proofread to the DCP’s usual standards.
Please cite as “FL-0412,” in Ɛpsilon: The Darwin Family Letters Collection accessed on 9 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/darwin-family-letters/letters/FL-0412