From Elizabeth Darwin to Ida Darwin 12 October [1877]

My dear Ida.

We have all been keeping a secret for the last 10 days but as it is no longer to be a secret on Saturday I shall take the liberty of telling to day. William is engaged to Sara Sedgwick! We are all very much delighted & have been able to think of nothing else. She is very nice indeed taking & pleasant & friendly

She & William suit each other so very well, I cannot help feeling it a great pity that they did not see something of each other when she was in England 9 years ago, & perhaps they would have got engaged then. She is just about the same age as William nearly 38, she hasn't very good health but I think she is better now than she was.

She feels giving up her country & Aunts most dreadfully & doesnt mean to go to America before their marriage because she would feel it such a wrench to leave again.

Dear old William it is very nice to think of him being so happy, it is an odd thing whenever any body said who could William marry we used to say Sara Sedgwick but as she was miles away in America it seemed a little hopeless.

They are both coming here on Saturday; she will stay some little time. As it was to be a secret William did the rather foolish thing of telling Uncle Ras. however he appears not to have told everybody as I should thought he would. but couldn't resist telling Hope that there was a blazing secret, but I daresay she guessed & that you all know, for it is extraordinary how things get round. William couldnt surprise his cook at all she said she knew it a week ago, & that she was very glad as you had to battle so to to make gentlemen understand things.

Horace came home last night from Switzerland, he brings a very cheerful account of Richard he seems very strong talks & laughs & reads Greek all day, but he is not allowed to sit up & has only begun substantial food a short time.

Lenny is gone to London to see his surgeon & learn his fate about his knee he will feel it rather hard if he has to lie down for another three weeks.

We hear through Uncle Ras that you are going to Rome this winter, when do you start?

Goodbye now. | your ever affectionate | E Darwin

We have been longing to tell our news, but I have a sort of feeling that it will be so flat now that nobody will care.