Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire.
EDEN FARM,
Thursday, August 31, 1815.
MY DEAREST SISTER, Did Mama write to you yesterday? I wish I knew, but she is unluckily upstairs, and indeed I must say is hardly ever in the way when I want her.
I had meant to have answered your letter yesterday, but Mary, Miss Vansittart, and I went a-pleasuring, so that I had not time.
We went in the morning to Greenwich, where Mr. Van.[58] met us in the Admiralty barge, and took us to the steamboat.
We found there Lord and Lady Liverpool,[59] my dear Letitia Taylor, Lady Georgina, and Lady Emily Bathurst, Lord Bathurst, Lord Harrowby, Sir G. Hope, Sir George Warrender, Mr. Lushington, etc. Lady Liverpool still retains the notion that I am Miss Eden in the country, as well as in town, and introduced Mary as Miss E. Eden, and me as Miss Eden to all the company, and Mr. Van. insisted on calling Miss Taylor—Miss Rickets, so that the most curious effect steam has had yet was making a large company answer to wrong names.
The Invention itself, I believe, was supposed to succeed perfectly. We had a very pleasant row, or steaming, or whatever else it may be called, beyond Woolwich, and back to Greenwich again in three hours, during which time we also contrived to eat a large breakfast, and a larger dinner and dessert.
Lord Liverpool had some very improper purring scenes, and Lady Liverpool was very good-natured....
It must be an amusing sight to see Sarah[60] scolding the post-boy for not driving fast enough, or calling to the hostler for “a pair of horses to St. Albans immediately,” or adding up the innkeeper’s account, and giving him something over for the scoundrel that drove.
That is the style she must now adopt. Ever your affect. sister,