From Leonard Darwin to Emma Darwin 7 February 1876

Dear mother

George is picking up slowly, I think, though he is not up to what he ought to be, according to his own account. He has been dining several nights at mess which he was hardly up to last week. I am off to Pembroke camp tomorrow I am sorry to say. It is a great bother coming whilst George is here, but I shall get in every afternoon, and only have the grind of a four miles walk at night. We have done our call on M^rs. Codrington at last; M^r Codrington is very consumptive and cannot live long I should think; Miss Allen seems very pleasant the little I have seen of her, and she says that the Allen in the 98^th. Regiment is very nice, so that I must cultivate his acquaintance. This afternoon I have been doing what we call call cavalry escort duty; the two Miss Wrays are very fond of riding, and they are always asking us to come out with them; we very often refuse as it is not a lively country for riding, and the result is they always ask a lot more of us than there are ladies to match, which also has a dendency to make it dull  It is really getting walmer now though we are still glad of a fire at night. The House has been made rather intolerable during the last fortnight by the drains bursting in all directions, and the smells have been pretty stiff even for an acclimatized nose; but it has done good as our landlord has had things put into very good order now. He is a Maltese & very different from the regulation landlords, as he has made several of these alterations without our even asking him, and now we are trying to stop him making some alterations in the garden which he considers ornamental  We went and lunched on board the ""Devastation"" the other day she is one those new huge turret ships that carry only four of those monster guns. It is rather a nasty life on board her, as the cabins have no ports and all the light is artificial, and they have arrangements for pumping air into all the cabins in the ship; but the people on board do not seem to grumble much

Your affec son | Leonard Darwin