I cannot tell you how delighted I am with your lovely gift to Joanie. The perfection of the stone, its exquisite color, and superb weight, and flawless clearness, and the delicate cutting, which makes the light flash from it like a wave of the Lake, make it altogether the most perfect mineralogical and heraldic jewel that Joanie could be bedecked with, and it is as if Susie had given her a piece of Coniston Water itself.
And the setting is delicious, and positively must not be altered. I shall come on Sunday to thank you myself for it. Meantime I'm working hard at the Psalter, which I am almost sure Susie will like.
Brantwood
.
I am so very glad you like Sir Philip so much.
I've sent for, and hope to get him for you. He was shot before he had done half his Psalter—His sister finished it, but very meanly in comparison, you can tell the two hands on the harp at a mile off.
The photograph—please say—like all photos whatsoever, is only [Pg 42] ] nature dirtied and undistanced.—If that is all one wants in trees,—they might be dead all the year round.
25th May (1879).