1376-1880j 



CHAPTER XVI 



18761880 



Bernard Darwin Stonehenge -K. B. Litchfield's illness at Lucerne 

 William Darwin's marriage My father's Honorary Degree 

 at Cambridge A round of visits Anthony Rich The Darwin 

 pedigree A month at Coniston Horace Darwin's marriage 

 A fur- co at surprise The Liberal victory. 



IN the autumn of 1876 my brother Francis, who was my 

 father's secretary, lost his wife and came with his new-born 

 baby, Bernard, to live in the old home. The shock and the 

 loss had a very deep effect on my mother and I think made 

 her permanently more fearful and anxious. The baby was 

 a great delight to both my parents, and my mother took up 

 the old nursery cares as if she were still a young woman. 

 Fortunately little Bernard was a healthy and good child so 

 there was not much anxiety, but it greatly changed her life. 

 She wrote: " Your father is taking a good deal to the Baby. 

 We think he (the Baby) is a sort of Grand Lama, he is so 

 solemn." 



The following letters were written to me at Kreuznach. 

 From now onwards the majority of the letters here given 

 are from my mother to me; when therefore there is no 

 heading, it is to be assumed that this is the case. She 

 wrote to me nearly every day when we were not together, 

 and I have kept all her letters. As years went on she used 

 so many contractions that her letters became almost a sort 

 of shorthand, but it would be both puzzling and tiresome 

 to reproduce these in print and it has seemed best to translate 

 them almost all. 



LEITH HILL PLACE, Monday [June, 1877]. 



. . F. was made very happy by finding two very old 

 stones at the bottom of the field, and he has now got a man 



