From Emma Darwin to H. E. Litchfield [17 September 1879]

Dearest H.

I hope to hear that you are better agin. It will be too dismal if you are poorly by yourself & I hope you will send for R— I have had a gt deal of talk w. Bessy—principally about Abinger, which seemed to her thoroughly uncomf. even in that short view—Effie seeming q. miserable esp. about that unlucky talk w. Horace— She was thinking of writing to him about it & I wish she had— It seems they have given up going abroad & that she was m. hurt at Ida not going w. them. Ida said she w^d go if Tom w^d; but he wants to work— The letters from Horace are q endless & Effie said she saw 0 of Ida, she was always writing upstairs. Altogether it is miserable—Aunt F. very low & wanting to get something about Laura's doings in the matter from B. w. alarmed her m.; but she was in some degree up to the situation & told a fib as well as she c^d manage it; w. was not v. well you may be sure— She had unluckily said ""What a comfort Laura had been to H. & I. & At Fanny said she wondered when Laura had known about it. Then there was a soreness about Horace's letters & Hope said to Laura "It is possible that Ida never reads you more than a line or 2 of H's letters & Laura was so glad to be able to answer that she never heard a single line of them.

F. is grown quite cowardly about inviting I. but we must do it before Tom goes to Oxford, if at all—

We have had faint hopes of a letter from FH. but that may brew for weeks— Snow called *P [symbol for yesterday] *Q from Ravensbourne—very pleasant & alluding quite easily to that Sunday at Abinger—

She thought q. as you do about the Petley's plan, & I think she will do some little good to Louisa by writing her opinion how dull & bad it w^d be for the children even if they got over the difficulty of Johnny's school (w. I was glad to see Louisa put in a most decisive form in her last letter) with no acquaintance for them but Forrests & Smiths. Also she said the house wd not be large enough— Also we hear that several people have been after it. As soon as it is a little blown over I mean to tell Eliz. that I sh^d not have liked it, in order that on a future occasion she may feel that it is a little my affair as well as hers— I doubt whether Louisa w^d like to come unless she heard that we wished it & I am sure Harry w^d not, if it came into his head, which very likely it w^d not—

When you have leisure I wish you w^d put down the pros & cons as from an outsider & giving due weight to the advantage of being near relations. I don't suppose I cd make use of it to Louisa as it ought to be accompanied w. some cordial expressions which I could not put—

Snow has been staying a long time w. the George Allens while he is away & poorly & out of spirits— She talked about our affairs & whether she might talk to Ellen, to w. I agreed of course—

She talked v. sensibly about T.H. want of consistency in the way he took it—& said 0 the least unpleasant—

yours my dear | E . D

A sweet little message from Ida thro' Bessy— ""She told me to say to you that she did long to see you, that she thought it wd do almost as well as seeing Horace

I forgot to say that Ida thinks it v. likely that Mr F is going to write to F—