My dear Charles

I like your unsentimental shaped paper very much so I hope you will stick to it. It holds so much. I really & solemnly think you are quite right about houses & so let us cast off the suburbs & what is more Susan thinks so too & you know what a wise woman she is. I read her what you said on that subject which I did not think was infringing on your wish of keeping your letters to myself. Dear good Susan has undertaken to get all the household linen which will be a great weight off our minds. She came over by the coach yesterday & we are enjoying her visit thoroughly. She brings a very good account of Caroline & will stay till Monday. The Hensleighs have asked me to go up with them for a week to look at houses with you. I think you thought of this plan yourself once, but I then thought it would be a bustle & not much use. Whether it will be of much use now I don’t know, but I am sure I shall like it of all things so I am a coming. The only thing I shall not like will be if it cheats me out of one of your visits here but you must not let it do that because we shall be in a bustle all the time I am at Notting Hill so that it will not do instead of a walk round Birth hill. I really think it will help matters if you fix upon 3 or 4 of the most likely houses for me to take a look at with you. Susan is all for Tavistock Sqr. but I am afraid that will be too extravagant. I want to be strictly incog so don’t say that I am coming to those dreadful blabs Erasmus & Robert for I don’t mean to go after any of my friends: So they need not know it till they see me at Notting Hill. I am very glad Roberts affair is so well got over. I do believe he has suffered a great deal with this unlucky affair. I want you to ask Robert whether he is going strait to Liverpool about the 15^thbecause if so it would be very convenient by way of an escort home for me, but you must only find out from curiosity & not tell him your reason. & he may be going round by Oxford or elsewhere.

My dear Charley shall I really see you the end of next week. It will be very pleasant I do think. I will send your note to Frank. I am afraid poor Cavington will hate the sight of me. I have great hopes that with the excellent character you can give him he will get a situation & I am sure Frank will do all he can for him. The great Solomon thinks he knows of a man servant for you & if he approves nothing more can be desired. I have the offer of a housemaid whom I like in some respects. I see you want a real good scolding about getting your work done so you must think what a dreadful rage I shall be in if you are not at leisure the week after next to go a galivanting with me in the flies & omnibusses. It is very unlucky your having such a quantity of work on your hands. I quite approve of your plan of furnishing a bit of the house first & getting into it how we can & then furnishing at our leisure. I think it would be quite insulting to take the house in Bedford Place just opposite the Horneritas.¹

There were several things in your last letter that pleased me uncommonly. I was a good deal flattered too by Thomas’s approbation, but your own flattery I like best though I don’t think you a very impartial judge. I feel sometimes inclined to say to you “I am very glad you think so” when I have said nothing in a very dignified way as if I thought your opinion quite a just one & no more than my due. Caroline says in a note to me that she can wish me no greater happiness than to meet with the same constant sympathy & affection she does & then it will not signify where I live as she finds. That is a wonderful marriage I say for the hundredth time, but I think I kn⁠⟨⁠ow⁠⟩⁠ one that will turn out quite as happy, though I don’t quite approve of M^r Lyell’s attempting to foment domestic dissention so early in the day as this. I don’t expect that you will be quite so lively at the D^rson Sunday, he will know better than to talk in that frivolous unfeeling way upon such a solemn subject. I believe I shall take your advice about Lyells book especially as I begin to think he has such a bad heart. I shall do my errands in London now instead of going to Liverpool. I think you will be glad to see me my dear Charles so I will give you my blessing & wish you Good bye.

The Temperance Festival succeeded very well in spite of the weather which was as bad as possible. The room was fuller than it could hold & a Temperance song to the tune of “Auld lang syne” was sold for a halfpenny each Said to be composed by Miss Wedgwood of Camp Hill² but not thought to be genuine. We are going to walk to Camp Hill this morning with Susan.

Goodbye once more write to me soon like a dear old soul. yours Emma W.