“My dear love to you all. I hope our Charlie boy is having some riding. A kiss to him and the girls from
“Your loving sister.”
At Heidelberg the party remained a few days, seeing something of the country, through the kindness of my sister’s friends, who lived in an old “schloss” outside the town. During this journey my sister first became really acquainted with Miss Buss, who wrote afterwards to me—
“I learned to care a good deal for your ‘child,’ and soon—well, not too soon—found out how much lay beneath that excessive reserve. Her flashes were very interesting to me, but my uncle’s companionship made it impossible for us to fuse, as you and I did in Edinburgh.”
In later years, a course of waters at a German bad became a necessity, and the letters give sketches of Spa, Ems, Kreuznach, Carlsbad, etc., which may be summed up, in brief, in extracts which also show the writer in relation to her own people—
“Kissingen, Aug. 20, 1885.
“Mein theuerster, allerliebster Franz,
“Ich liebe dich noch und immer. It is difficult not to drop into German; we have been in the midst of it so long, and we take a German lesson so often at the little theatre. Besides, it has such pretty expressions. The use of ‘thou’ to those with whom you are very intimate is charming! It is a loss to have dropped it in English.
“Father will be home on Saturday, I hear, and I hope he will go off to the ‘liebe mütterchen’ at Ilfracombe....
“To-day, for the first time, we have rain. But we have been to the Saliné, or salt springs, and are now going to the theatre. Last night we went to a ‘diabolisch spiritisch’ performance by a conjurer. The Duke of Cambridge sat very near us, so near that we could hear nearly all he was saying.”