We have cold, snow, and dust, after quite warm weather. I trust you will have sunshine to-morrow.
This last fortnight the news from Ashantee has so absorbed our thoughts. It has been an arduous undertaking, and one’s heart warms to our dear troops, who under all difficulties sustain their old name for bravery and endurance. The poor 42d [Regiment] lost many through illness, too; and I see they entered Coomassie playing the bagpipes!
Louis is just reading to me Sir Hope Grant’s book on the Indian Mutiny, which he kindly sent me, and which is interesting and pleasant to read.
I am taking the first snowdrops to sweet Frittie’s grave. How the first flowers he so dearly loved bring tears to my eyes, and recollections which wring my heart anew! I dread these two next months with their flowers and their birds. Good bye, darling Mama.
Darmstadt, April 7th.
* * * Surely Marie must feel it very deeply, for to leave so delicate and loving a mother must seem almost wrong. How strange this side of human nature always seems—leaving all you love most, know best, owe all debts of gratitude to, for the comparatively unknown! The lot of parents is indeed hard, and of such self-sacrifice.
April 11th.
* * * The children are too much an object here; they have too little to compare with; they would be benefited by a change, seeing other things and people, else they get into a groove, which I know is not good. They are very unspoilt in their tastes, and simple and quiet children, which I think of the greatest importance.
Louis Battenberg has passed a first-rate examination. The parents are so happy, and the influence the good conduct and steady work of the elder brother has on the younger is of the greatest use, as they wish to follow him, and be as well spoken of, and please their parents, as he does. * * *
April 15th.