Nelly2 thinks perhaps it would seem hardly courteous to the Duke not to ask him down, so if you see no objection I will when you are fairly settled write & propose the previous arrangement.3
Lubbock had previously tried to arrange for CD to come to High Elms to meet Francis, duke of Teck (see letter to John Lubbock, 3 May [1875] and n. 3). CD had just returned from Abinger Hall in Surrey on 6 July (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).