I suppose you are all rehearsing and acting. Lady Derby writes word that she hears Alice[585] is well enough now to think of acting on the 11th, so I hope she has made great progress in health since she got home. Lady Derby gives rather a poor account of him; he gains strength so slowly, but she says that after being confined to his own room for three months, he was now able to get about the house at times....
The only two people I have seen this week have been Lord Brougham and Sir C. Wood.[586] Lord Brougham was only in town for two nights on his way to Cannes. He is quite enthusiastic about my father’s papers, and has written something about them in the Law Review, and he was rather good-humoured and pleasant. But on going away he always cries so much at the prospect of our not meeting again, that he leaves me in a puzzled state of low spirits. All the more, that I have not the remotest idea whether it is his death or mine that he is crying over; but he looks so well, I think it must be mine.
By the bye, your old Dean Milman[587] came hobbling into the room on Saturday, full of abject apologies to Lena, whom he chose to suppose he had affronted, and taking great care to ignore his real grand sin of abducting the papers without asking leave. However, he came to say that he was most agreeably surprised that Mr. Hogge has done his part well,[588] and that he and Mrs. Milman had been greatly interested, etc., which she amply confirmed. I like her very much, and she is still so handsome.... Good-bye, dearest. I did not write sooner, as I had just written to the Grove when your letter came, and as everything is public property there, this counts for a letter to Lord Clarendon as well as to you. Your affectionate
E. EDEN.
Miss Eden to her Niece, Mrs. Dickinson.[589]
Eden Lodge, Kensington Gore [1864].
MY DEAR MRS. DICKINSON, I am charmed with your letter, I wanted to have one from you. Dear old Longleat! I should so like to see it again. I passed so much of my youth so very happily there, and I do not think I ever attained loving anybody more than Lady Bath,[590]—not this one[591]—but her mother-in-law, and the daughters pay back to me the affection I had for their mother....
I suppose they told you about the Horticultural Fête? I saw and heard nothing but the crash of carriages, and linkmen went on screaming for them till nine at night. I have not heard linkmen screaming for the last thirteen years.
Yesterday Lena got leave from one of her friends working in the garden, to bring me in thro’ a little obscure door into the great conservatory, which we had to ourselves, and I really could hardly believe the flowers were real, they were so unearthly beautiful, particularly the geraniums and roses, great round stools of flowers of the brightest colours. Some day I have a fancy that I shall be well enough to go down and visit you, my old pet. What a bore for you! Your aff.
E. E.