178 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, 



knew her before, and this visit laid the foundation of their 

 friendship. 



In June, 1861, we went to Torquay, and there I began to 

 get well. It was a very happy time. My father was 

 fairly well, and the boys were full of enjoyment. We had 

 our customary summer visitors, Erasmus Darwin, and 

 Hope, Hensleigh Wedgwood's youngest daughter. 



Towards the end of our time at Torquay my mother 

 took Hope Wedgwood and me a little trip round Dartmoor. 

 It was the only tour she ever took without the family in 

 all her married life. 



In the antumn of 1861 Charlotte Langton, whose health 

 had for some time been breaking down, went to St Leonards, 

 where she died in January, 1862, at the age of 65. My 

 mother was twice able to go there to see her during the 

 autumn. Fanny Allen wrote to Elizabeth : "I daily feel 

 a debt of gratitude to you for the precious time I passed with 

 you and Charlotte this last summer. Her patient, calm and 

 thoughtful look as I saw her on your terrace, while we sat 

 round her chair, is ever present to me, and it is pleasant to 

 dwell on it, for it was the same countenance and expres- 

 sion that has gone with her from her childhood, and has the 

 stamp of an heavenly birth on it." 



She quotes for its truth Sir James Mackintosh's description 

 of Charlotte as both "gentle and strong," and speaks of 

 loving her since first she saw her in her child's frock. To 

 Elizabeth the loss was irreparable. She came first to Down, 

 and Fanny Allen wrote that this would be her best solace, 

 for ' Emma of all others blends cheerfulness and con- 

 solation." Charles Langton did not wish to continue living 

 at Hartfield and Elizabeth therefore left the Ridge. It 

 was to us the loss of two houses which were almost second 

 homes. 



1862 was another year of anxiety and of illness in the 

 family. Leonard, then a boy of twelve, had scarlet fever 

 most dangerously, and hung between life and death for 

 weeks. The other children were sent away from home with 

 our old Scotch nurse Brodie, who happened to be paying us 

 a visit. At the end of my mother's long period of nursing 

 she caught the fever herself and was very ill. Eventually, 

 however, we all met at Bournemouth, very glad to be once 

 more a reunited family. 



About 1863 my mother worked very hard to have some 

 humane trap substituted for the cruel steel trap in common 

 use in game-preserving. She got the Society for the Preven- 



