You all sound very happy at Harpton, and Lord Clarendon had given me the same account, and said how much his girls[573] were taking to their new cousin, and how pleased they were with Thérèse’s perfect happiness.
The house in Pont Street is a good idea. Thérèse will be so handy for you to fetch and carry, and it will be such a mere step for her to Kent House. I do not mean to settle yet what my little offering is to be. I want to choose it myself when I go back to town. And then I have rather set my heart on a china dessert service, but if anybody else steps in, I can easily set my heart on something else. There are so many duplicates in wedding presents; such unnecessary quantities of inkstands and cream jugs; that I think it better to wait a little and hit the spot at the end. I began life by giving my sister Mary a dessert service when she married on £900 a year, and settled in that little cottage at Neasdon; and in all their after wealth Mr. Drummond never would have any other, but went on filling up the breakages in the old pattern to the end. And so it has been my usual wedding cadeau since, and I gave one to J. Colvile[574] when he went to India, and as I look on Thérèse as a niece, I should like to go jogging on in the old dessert fashion; so, if anybody consults you, say that is bespoke. So Mr. Harcourt may have one. But you will let me know in the course of time. The Sydney Herberts called here yesterday. They had slept at the Grenville farm and he came very good-naturedly to assure himself, he said, that I was aware of the complete success of “Semi,” which seems to have taken his fancy prodigiously. He said it had become a sort of byword in London, and that if anybody talked of taking a house, the answer was, Semi-detached, of course. I have not seen him for 12 years, and he is not the least altered in looks. They were going to dine with Florence Nightingale[575] at Hampstead, or rather at her house, for she has come quite to the last days of her useful life and is dying of disease of the heart. Every breath she draws may be heard through her closed doors, but when she can speak she still likes to talk to Mr. Herbert of soldiers’ hospitals and barracks, and to suggest means of improving them. Ever your affectionate
E. EDEN.
Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis.
EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE,
Saturday evening, November 1859.
MY DEAREST THERESA, Between Lena,[576] and Lady Ribblesdale,[577] and Eddy and Theresa, and all the maids in the house, I am mistress of every detail of the wedding, and I am so very glad that it all went off so beautifully. Lena says it is the most interesting wedding she has been at; there was so much feeling and family affection floating about; and I hear dear Thérèse looked very pretty and very pale. But it is you, my old dear, that I have been thinking of all day—thinking so much that I am obliged to write to get the subject off my mind. I am so sorry for you, but only just at this moment. And, after all, the wedding is not so bad as the day of proposal to the mother. Then you had nothing to look to but her going away; and now your next prospect is her coming back; and in the meanwhile you have done all in your power to secure her happiness.
God bless you, dear. This does not require an answer, but I could not resist writing, and I thought you would like to know that I was as well as could be expected; after the fatigue of being at Mrs. Harcourt’s wedding this morning. I really feel as if I had been there. Your affectionate
E. EDEN.