My dear Fanny

Jessie’s confinement was safely over on Sunday of a little girl.² Caroline³ & I went to call on them on Saturday & Jessie seemed very well but expecting that it was coming on. & she sent for her D^r & nurse very soon after we left them & at 9$\frac{1}{2}$ the next morning it was over after a very good time which it might well be for the poor little thing is borne before its time & wretchedly small. They were afraid it would not live yesterday but today Hannah is in good heart about it. Eliza⁴ looked harrassed & tired. We did not see Jessie who is going on as well as possible. She left orders that no visitors were to see the child till it grows less ugly, though Hannah & Bessy protest that it is very pretty⁵   it has dark hair & is nothing but skin so you may imagine how pretty it is. It seems much better than yesterday which is a very good sign. There is not a chance of Jessie being able to nurse it yet & so they are going to have a wet nurse for it & the child for Jessie as her own is too weak & small to attempt it. It was very lucky their getting to Seabridge which looks very nice & cheerful.

The wedding at Boulston was a regular Sir Charles Grandison one. Flowers strewed & setting off with 4 horses. All the Cresselly folk were there & say Tom & Anne looked very happy & it was quite a merry wedding.⁶ It is a comfort to hear that Bro⁷ keeps to his old words of Dadoo &c which I was afraid he had lost.

We are getting impatient for Charles’s arrival.⁸ The Langtons⁹ must go on Monday any how so I hope he will come soon. We all ought to get up a little knowledge for him. I have taken to no deeper study that Capt Head’s gallop¹⁰ which I have never read before. I am afraid it wont instruct me much. He seems to have been much struck with the sight of Hensleigh¹¹ walking up the s^t with a band box in one hand & a child in the other.

Your account of Violet¹² will certainly make us get it. Aunt Emma & Penelope may think themselves lucky not to be in Italy now for we heard a most pathetic story of a party of ladies & gentlemen in a ship at Civita Vecchia being put into 2 rooms & not allowed literally to stir out of them for 11 days. John Jones who was one of the party had no sort of objection to swearing falsely that they had not been at Genoa, for he said there was no Testament & nothing but an Image of the V. Mary.¹³ The whole party forswore themselves most comfortably except a clergyman who scrupled the oath though he had no objection to a false declaration   Lady Strachan¹⁴ pathetically exclaimed, “Is there nobody who will persuade this gentleman that it is merely a matter of form? This came from Harry through M^r Vaughan Williams.¹⁵

Loo is here whom we are going in earnest to begin calling Louisa.¹⁶ The new one is to be Caroline Elizabeth. Charles seems to have nearly settled in favor of living at Cambridge, which is a pity for Erasmus’s¹⁷ sake but I sh^d feel sure that Charles w^d like Cambridge best as he has a particular spite to London I believe.

Yours & [El’s]¹⁸ letters came in very apropos just as we were beginning to get rather cross. I am glad Mr Richmond is going to do the children.¹⁹ I wish we could send up Godfrey²⁰ at the same time.

You shall hear again pretty soon how the poor little thing goes on but I expect it to do well. | Goodbye my dear Fanny.