232 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvi 



credible that F. should agree, and I am afraid not coming 

 home after the ten days' absence will be very serious. 

 I have been out lamenting over the garden. Yesterday 

 it was so pretty with Eschscholtzia and Linums blazing in 

 the sun, but about 5 o'clock we had the most tropical 

 thunder, hail and rain storm I ever saw. F. was out, but 

 after sheltering several times, came back in a quarter of an 

 hour to find a river over shoe-tops in front of the house. 

 The hail quite hurt his feet as he came home, and if he 

 had had Polly he would have had to try to protect her. 



DOWN [June, 1878]. 



I wish you had been here to see Bernard's arrival, it 

 was so pretty. He recognised us all at once so as to have 

 a very sweet modest smile, and directly F. put his hand 

 in his waistcoat pocket, he went and sat on his lap and 

 had the bright spots just as usual. He was perfectly fresh, 

 and in a rapture with the windmill as he came along. 



The " bright spots ' were made by rny father's little 

 pocket magnifying glass. 



After Bernard had had some little illness my mother 

 wrote (Oct. 1878): 'I daresay he will relapse again and 

 I must school myself not to get so miserable. It is like a 

 bodily ache," And when he was better: " B. is almost more 

 charming poorly than well. He is so attentive and placid 

 and listens to any amount of twaddle. He took to kissing 

 all the pictures yesterday." 



[DowN, Aug. 1878]. 



. . . The two articles in the Fortnightly 1 by Greg and Glad- 

 stone are very striking; I think the first G. so reasonable 

 and cool and the second so fiery and full of clan. I don't 



1 There is no article in the Fortnightly by Gladstone in 1878. 

 She probably meant England's Mission in the Nineteenth Century 

 by Gladstone, and W. R. Greg's paper in a symposium on " Is popular 

 judgment in politics more right than that of the higher classes *" 

 The Eastern question wag then exciting great interest in England 

 owing to the "Bulgarian atrocities" (1876) and the war between 

 Russia and Turkey (1877-78) which led to the Treaty of Berlin 

 (July, 1878). 



