"I have bought you some pretty new songs, among others one by Charles Kingsley, which is lovely; about three fishermen and their wives: it reminds one of our dear Whitby! I can play the accompaniment in perfection, and all by heart!
"Give my kindest remembrances to Father Louis and the dear Abbé Lefebvre, and say kind things from me to the Torfses. Martha sends her love to little Frau, and so do I.
"We hope to be in Antwerp in a fortnight, and shall put up at the Grand Laboureur. I shall go to Malines, of course, to say good‑bye to people.
"Tell the Torfses to get my things ready for moving. There will be five of us: I and Martha, and Daphne and two servants of her own; for Daphne's got to take old Mrs. Richards, who won't be parted from her.
"Good‑bye for the present. My dear boy, I thank God on my knees, night and morning for having given you back to me in my old age.
"Your ever affectionate aunt,
"Caroline.
"P. S.—You remember pretty little Kitty Hardwicke you used to flirt with, who married young St. Clair, who's now Lord Kidderminster? She's just had three at a birth; she had twins only last year; the Queen's delighted. Pray be careful about never getting wet feet—"
One stormy evening in May, Mrs. Gibson drove Ida and Leah and me and Mr. Babbage, a middle‑aged but very dapper War Office clerk (who was a friend of the Gibson family), to Chelsea, that we might explore Cheyne Walk and its classic neighborhood. I rode on the box by the coachman.
We alighted by the steamboat pier and explored, I walking with Leah.