A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xx 



the week. William laments that he cannot come, also 

 Horace. I always feel how your father would have en- 

 joyed it. ... 



Yours, my two dear ones, 



E. D. 



Emma Darwin to her daughter Henrietta Litchfield. 



July 31sf, 1892. 



We have had great amusement and election talk. . . . 

 Lettington [the old gardener] said to Leonard ' I don't 

 agree with your politics ; but I did not think it was in you to 

 make such a noble speech," 



The large house at Down could hold more than one family 

 of the grandchildren, and she greatly enjoyed having them 

 all round her. She wrote: (Aug. 28) " Frances was puzzled 

 at breakfast. Ruth took salt with her porridge, so Frances 

 decided to have it; but then Nora took sugar, so she had 

 to change quickly. Bernard is a jewel for play, and I found 

 them all this morning and Frank also, with different gym- 

 nastics on the slide, with their shoes off and very hot." 



The c ' slide ' ' was a speciality at Down, a long shallow 

 wooden tray of polished deal which was hitched by a cross- 

 piece of wood on to a step of the stairs, and thus reared up 

 as high as was desired. The children came down fast or 

 slow, standing or sitting, according to the gradient. It 

 could be made almost flat for little children and steep 

 enough to make the big ones come down with a grand rush. 



DOWN, Sept. 12, 1892. 



There was such a dark sentence in Snow's letter that I 

 could not keep my senses from the beginning to the end; 

 but M. gave me a concise translation and said it meant that 

 ' you were fond of people though they were dull." 



THE GROVE, Oct., 1892. 



Le Caron 1 will be wholesome reading for Gladstone. It 

 is a good thing to recall the brutality and cruelty of the 



1 Le Caron was in the Secret Service of our Government and had 

 been very active in the Fenian raids on Canada. In the Parnell 

 Commission nothing was brought out to his discredit. 



