130 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, ix 



Fanny Allen to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



42, CHESTER TERRACE, March 26th [1851]. 



MY DEAR ELIZABETH, 



I am safely housed here you see. I found Fanny 

 laid up with a relapse of the influenza. Hensleigh is well, 

 and has that kind simple manner that makes one love him 

 independent of his other excellences. 



The party at the Bunsens last night was very full, and 

 perhaps it might be called brilliant. The Chevalier is ex- 

 ceedingly oldened, and he has lost much of his gaiety. 

 I fancy it is politics that has grieved and saddened him. 

 There were no very notable persons there, a great number 

 of over-dressed ugly old women, ugly from being over- 

 dressed and over-fed. There were several very pretty 

 young girls, but they did not conquer the mass of ugliness 

 about them. I rejoice that the debate is at length over, 

 and I heartily wish we could throw the Cardinal and all 

 his Catholics on the Irish coast and pen him in there. 

 What an a propos history is that of Miss Talbot's ! x and 

 how it shows up the lying propensity of the Catholics, 

 perhaps a little owing to the genial soil of Irish flesh and 

 blood. Mrs Seymour Allen spent a day with us last week 

 and Kitty too. The baby is getting about, and Mrs Allen 

 thinks Jones has carried her infant through a dangerous 

 disorder, and it would be wrong, as well as difficult, to shake 

 their faith in the family doctor. How many people are 

 killed by their pet doctors ! not that Jones is one at Cresselly, 

 but he kills. . . . 



Fanny Allen to her sister Madame Sismondi. 



[42, CHESTER TERRACE], March 31 [1851]. 



. . . Charles Darwin dined here yesterday. He has been 

 in town since Friday on his return from Malvern, where 



1 In 1851 the year of Papal aggression there was some story 

 which, got into the papers about a Miss Talbot being forced into a 

 nunnery. 



