I may add, on mamma's part and my own, the assurance of our being ready to submit to any privation, or even misery if necessary, to bring papa's affairs into a healthier condition. Mamma will consent to anything but living in Ireland, which, indeed, I think is more than could be expected from her. As it is, we keep no carriage here, nor have any equipage whatever; our table is simply two courses, and some fruit. We are wearing out all our old-fashioned clothes, and see nobody. If you can suggest any additional mode of economizing, mamma begs you will favor us with a line; meanwhile, she desires me to say that any allusion to "returning to Dodsborough," or any plan "for living abroad as we lived at home" will only embitter the intercourse, which, to be satisfactory, should be free from any irritation between us.
Of course, for the present you will write to mamma, as papa is far from being fit for any communication on matters of business, nor does the doctor anticipate his being able for such for some weeks to come. We have not heard from James since he left this, but are anxiously expecting a letter by every post, and even to see his name in the "Gazette." Cary does not forget that she was always your favorite, and desires me to send her very kindest remembrances, with which I beg you to accept those of very truly yours,
Mart Anne Dodd.
P. S. As it is quite uncertain when papa will be equal to any exertion, mamma thinks it would be advisable to make your remittances, for some time, payable to her name.
The doctor of the dispensary has written to papa, asking his support at some approaching contest for some situation,—I believe under the Poor-law. Will you kindly explain the reasons for which his letter has remained unreplied to? and if papa should not be able to answer, perhaps you could take upon yourself to give him the assistance he desires, as I know pa always esteemed him a very competent person, and kind to the poor. Of course the suggestion is only thrown out for your own consideration, and in strict confidence besides, for I make it a point never to interfere with any of the small details of pa's property.
LETTER X. MRS. DODD TO MRS. MARY GALLAGHER, DODSBOROUGH
My dear Molly,—I received your letter in due course, and if it was n't for crying, I could have laughed heartily over it! I don't know, I'm sure, where you got your elegant description of the Lake of Comus; but I am obliged to tell you it's very unlike the real article; at all events, there 's one thing I 'm sure of,—it's a very different matter living here like Queen Caroline, and being shut up in the same house with K. I.; and therefore no more balderdash about my "queenly existence," and so on, that your last was full of.
Here we are, in what they call the Villa of the Fountains, as if there was n't water enough before the door but they must have it spouting up out of a creature's nose in one corner, another blowing it out of a shell, and three naked figures—females, Molly—dancing in a pond of it in the garden, that kept me out of the place till I had them covered with an old mackintosh of K. I.'s. We have forty-seven rooms, and there's barely furniture, if it was all put together, for four; and there 's a theatre, and a billiard-room, and a chapel; but there 's not a chair would n't give you the lumbago, and the stocks at Bruff is pleasant compared to the grand sofa. The lake comes round three sides of the house, and a mountain shuts in the other one, for there 's no road whatever to it. You think I 'm not in earnest, but it's as true as I 'm here; the only approach is by water, so that everything has to come in boats. Of course, as long as the weather keeps fine, we 'll manage to send into the town; but when there comes—what we 're sure to have in this season—aquenoctial gales, I don't know what 's to become of us. The natives of the place don't care, for they can live on figs and olives, and those great big green pumpkins they call watermelons; but, after K. I.'s experience, I don't think we'll try them. It was at a little place on the way here, called Colico, that he insisted on having a slice of one of these steeped in rum for his supper, because he saw a creature eating it outside the door. Well, my dear, he relished it so much that he ate two, and—you know the man—would n't stop till he finished a whole melon as big as one of the big stones over the gate piers at home.
"Jemi," says he, when he'd done, "is this the place the hand-book says you should n't eat any fruit in, or taste the wines of the country?"