From Emma Darwin to Leonard Darwin 26 October 1875

My dear Old Man

It is very pleasant hearing from you so often & feeling that you are not at the Antipodes.

I shall have little enough to tell you, as the others have written so lately. We have got a very charming stray Scotch terrier which I shd like to keep but two dogs w^d be a bore. Frank hankers after it too, but Amy is strict & indeed a rough dog in a sitting room often smells bad. However I expect the owner will claim it. Horace is at work at the pumping engines erecting at Brighton. We were much excited at first & thought it was a place of responsibility & an honour; but it turns out to be a favour in order to give him a chance of learning something new, & he is to do little or much as at Erith & has no responsibility—

He was at home v. poorly when the offer came but it cheered him up & did him good, & he went off on his new gigantic bicycle to Orpington, taking it to London to have a brake put on & it is to follow him to Brighton, where it will be useful as he lodges some way from the works–- - Brighton will be a good place to use it as there is I believe a street along shore 3 miles long. Frank has enjoyed 3 days at Cam. George stoked him up to come & not let himself be forgotten. He saw every body & talked the whole of the time. G. gave a grand breakfast of 14—which went off well—

Bessy & Amy walked to Holwood (the trees gorgeous in the Park) they found Mrs Alexander alone, Miss D. being gone for 6 weeks hunting with some fast young ladies who stick at nothing & Mrs A. does not at all like it. I expect to hear of her being snapped up every day. The Litches are at Bournemouth & find Ed. confined to 2 rooms & very unwell—so languid that he had no pleasure in seeing them. He has some sort of periodical fever every day & his breath very short. Lena & her girls (she has 2 now) are very attentive to him. Aunt Caroline is no better & still at Felixstowe & we seem surrounded with illness. The Kempsons are gone home, & tho' he is no better, he finds that a double dose of Bang does lull the pain— The Nashes will I hope succeed in establishing a sort of Clubhouse & Reading room, by hiring the Wood's house. It is to be open all the year & best of all on Sundays (not during service) & they hope to make it nearly self & supporting (which we have not the least hopes of)

F. sneered severely at you officers being so ashamed of your uniform. & giving yourselves so m. trouble. The picture is come & we don't like it. It is dismal & coarse—

Well Goodbye—my dear | yours E. Darwin

N. B. You are rather weak in the word hárbour, which is an unlucky word to spell wrong at Malta.