From H. E. Darwin to G. H. Darwin [October 1866?]

Dear George

I feel I've so much to tell you I dunno where to begin, but the fact is that the event is only great in importance & will not take so very long in telling. (You'll think at the least I'm going to be married after this preamble) Well, Elinor has been sickly for some time & has had seething projects of going abroad for an age & I had a slight pang in the suggestion of the possibility of going to Rome with her—that failed & now she is going to Cannes with her Aunt Miss Julia Smith & I'm going with her. Tisn't quite, quite certain, but I do feel morally sure of it. It will be precious nice though not Rome of course. I like Miss J. Smith very much & so I'm all right with my travelling companiions—& I shall like going abroard merely as abroard, besides the beauty of Cannes. It is has all come to a head ever so suddenly & I'm going to London tomorrow for trousseaux & start I believe on Wednesday week. It feels lawful. You must invest in foreign paper & write me a letterkin once a fortnight. I can't do on less anyhow—& I'll promise not to bore you in return with too much beauty of nature. I do feel it sad that I shall be such an age without hearing about your scholarship, but of course someone will write at once, but I shall feel it so precious hard when you all know at home. I think Lizzie wrote & told you of my illness, t'was quite a nasty little illness while it lasted. pain is precious nasty & I'm never sick without pains & aches, & they were worse than usual this time. how different people are. Effie likes being ill!!!! It does seem so utterly incomprehensible to me. Well, the gist of it is that I'm rightly well now. I do so wish someone cd see my case. It is more lovely than Eden & the Spice Islands is nothing ot it in the way of smell. It is just done up by Anne & self & you must excuse tedium, cos I cannot I cannot get over its beauty. Oh! if Tina cd see it! I had got the drawing full of [potts]— the furniture in confusion Anne & self with muddy hands gowns tucked up & sans crinoline when a ring at the door made our hearts sink within us, but after a hasty rush to Mama to see whether they might go into the dining room, I sent Thos to the door when Mama startedup galopped to the top of stairs & began yelling loudly ""Stop a bit, Stop a bit."" I had to flee into the drawing room & cdnt stop & this was the way the curate of Cudham was received in his first call, & so Mama made abject apologies saying it was the state of the drawing room caused her agaony & then to verify her words brought them in upon poor me to my horror. He is not a high toned gentleman but a very good man & irish to his backbone. It must be something in the air of Cudham produces them irish.

Boys have just gone after a hearty dinner at 5$\frac{1}{4}$, lunch at one, two helps beef rice pudding, parmesan & huncks of bread, sinner soup chicken two helps pudding, two helps welsh rabbit, pretty well, isn't it? they met the Franks & I think liked it & it gave zest to Mabs at any rate. Cecil has grown dreadfully dull & old. Skimp says L. is working v. hard.

I'm tired & ""I aint got no more to say"" as Laura Forster ends her letters.

Goodbye, dear George you must be a good boy to me  I suppose there is su. excitement about the new master— | H.E.D.