180 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xin 



his daily bread. His master does not see it done. Is the 

 responsibility thus to slip between the two ? 



No doubt this is the most effectual way of preserving game ; 

 but I cannot believe that English gentlemen, who would 

 not themselves give unnecessary pain to any living creature, 

 and are eager to prevent brutality wherever they see it, 

 either on the part of drovers or physiologists, will continue 

 to allow even this motive to weigh against such an amount 



f Sufferin 3- Yours, &c., 



(Signed) B. C. 



In February, 1863, we went to see Fechter and Kate Terry 

 in the Duke's Motto. My mother's old taste for the play 

 remained as strong as ever, and she admired Kate Terry 

 with enthusiasm. Of old plays that she had enjoyed, 

 I especially remember her speaking of the Maid and the 

 Magpie as delightful. It comes back to me that out of 

 her wish that we should enjoy what gave her such great 

 pleasure, I was sent to the Corsican Brothers at so youth- 

 ful an age that I could only bear the terror of it all by 

 shutting my eyes. 



In the autumn we took a house at Malvern Wells, to try 

 if a little mild water-cure treatment would do my father good. 

 But nothing answered, and he was most seriously ill. 



Charles Langton, whose wife Charlotte had died in Janu- 

 ary, 1862, became engaged in the summer of 1863 to Cath- 

 erine Darwin, my father's youngest sister, and the marriage 

 took place in October of the same year. To us children 

 it came as a shock, for it seemed to us incredible that any- 

 one over fifty should think of such a thing as marrying. 

 Catherine was 53, and had neither good health nor good 

 spirits, and both she and Charles Langton had strong wills, 

 so that my father and mother were doubtful as to their 

 happiness and thought the marriage a somewhat anxious 

 experiment. 



Fanny Allen to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



[October 7, 1863.] 



To-morrow, I hear from one of Emma's nice letters, 

 Cath.'s marriage takes place. I wish they may have a 



