My dearest.

The weather is quite delicious. Yesterday after writing to you I strolled a little beyond the glade for an hour & half & enjoyed myself—the fresh yet dark green of the grand Scotch Firs, the brown of the catkins of the old Birches with their white stems & a fringe of distant green from the larches, made an excessively pretty view.— At last I fell fast asleep on the grass & awoke with a chorus of birds singing around me, & squirrels running up the trees & some Woodpeckers laughing, & it was as pleasant a rural scene as ever I saw, & I did not care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been formed.—

I sat in drawing room till after 8 & then went & read the Chief Justices summing up & thought Barnard guilty² & then read a bit of my novel, which is feminine, virtuous, clerical, philanthropical & all that sort of thing but very decidedly flat. I say feminine, for the author is ignorant about money matters, & not much of a Lady—for she make her men say “My Lady.”³

I like Miss Craik very much, though we have some battles & differ on every subject.⁴ I like also the Hungarian; a thorough gentleman, formerly attachè at Paris & then in Austrian Cavalry & now a pardoned exile, with broken health⁵ He does not seem to like Kossuth, but says he is, he is certain, a sincere patriot, most clever & eloquent, but weak with no determination of character.—⁶ M^r. Craik looks far more bloated than ever.⁷ M^r Carr is simply very dull & very silent, but looks a gentleman.—⁸

Farewell my own | Best love to Etty⁹ & all | C. D.