I think you had better address your next letter Poste Restante, Strasburg, as I am uncertain how long we shall rest at Baden.
Left Wildbad on the 17th July, and had a delightful drive through the Black Forest by Herrenalb to Baden, and thence by Strasburg, Metz, Luxemburg, and Brussels, arriving at Witley on Monday the 26th of July.
Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st Aug. 1880.
We arrived here in all safety last Monday, and if I had not had your welcome little note this morning I think I should soon have written to you without any such extra stimulus.
Mr. Cross had a sharp but brief attack at Venice, due to the unsanitary influences of that wondrous city in the later weeks of June. We stayed a little too long there, with a continuous sirocco blowing, and bad smells under the windows of the hotel; and these conditions found him a little below par from long protracted anxiety before our marriage. But ever since we left Venice (on the 23d of June) he has been getting strong again, and we have enjoyed a leisurely journey through Germany in constant warmth and sunshine, save for an occasional thunderstorm. The climate in this beloved country of ours is a sad exchange, and makes one think of a second bad harvest, with all its consequences. Still, it is a delight to be at home and enjoy perfect stillness, after the noisiness of foreign bells and foreign voices indoors and out. It would be very pretty to pay you a visit next April, if we are all alive, and I think Mr. Cross would like it very much. He sends you, hoping you will accept them, his best remembrances, which have been kept up by our often talking about you. I have been amazingly well through all the exertion of our travels, and in the latter half of the time have done a great deal of walking.
Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 2d Aug. 1880.
How sweet of you to write me a little welcome as soon as you knew that I was at home again.
Yes, we are both well now, and glad to be at home again, though the change of climate is not of the exhilarating sort. One is so sorry for all the holiday-makers, whose best enjoyment of these three days would have been in the clear air and sunshine.
Do not reproach me for not telling you of my marriage beforehand. It is difficult to speak of what surprises ourselves, and the decision was sudden, though not the friendship which led to the decision.
My heart thoroughly responds to your remembrance of our long—our thirty-years' relation to each other. Let me tell you this once what I have said to others—that I value you as one of the purest-minded, gentlest-hearted women I have ever known, and where such a feeling exists, friendship can live without much aid from sight.