A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, vi 



Madame, Sismondi to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



DOWN, June 20 [1844]. 



. . . We came here yesterday, we three and Fan Hens- 

 leigh and her baby, filling a nice clean coach. I find even 

 the drive refreshing, how much more this pretty, brilliantly 

 clean, quiet house. The repose and coolness of it is de- 

 licious, let alone the sunny faces which met us so lovingly 

 at the door, amongst them Charlotte's sweet one, un- 

 changed, and so young, I am continually confounding it 

 with Emma's. This place and house I find exceedingly 

 pretty, the drawing-room is a charming one, and the dining- 

 room excellent. Emma, always the dearest little hostess in 

 the world, and without any extraordinary out-of-the-way 

 quality, is the most original little person in her way living. 

 I rejoice greatly in getting this bit of Charlotte and finding 

 her so unchanged in every way, except the anxious mother, 

 and even anxiety with her is calm, concentrated, unobtrusive. 



Fanny [Allen] saw Syd. Smith for half-an-hour in his 

 very handsome house, mad with spirits, saying he had even 

 now such an exuberance he did not know what to do with 

 himself for very joy. He was pressing Fanny to marry, and 

 recommended a lad of twenty to her. . . . Lady Davy 

 told me she saw little of him, he was very rich, forgot old 

 friendships or never had any, and really his want of moral 

 feeling was painful, there was a time for all things, and it 

 was now become indecorous both his jokes and laughs. . . . 



Very soon after the above letter was written Madame 

 Sismondi, accompanied by her sister Emma, set out for 

 Geneva and Chene. 



Madame Sismondi to her niece Emma Darwin. 



CHENE, July 13tf, 1844. 



... I seem so near him here, that the separation does not 

 appear so complete and terrible as when I was in England, 

 where all the regret for him seemed centred in my own 



