254 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvm 



which made us rather low: I suppose we should have been 

 still lower if we had gone to the nomination, for Papa was 

 received with silence, Mr Davenport with hisses and 

 hootings, Mr Heathcote with some applause, and Mr Mason 

 with rapture, which shews how little a nomination shews 

 one of how matters will turn out. Papa's speech looks well 

 in the newspapers. He was listened to without applause, as 

 he says, tho' the newspaper is more obliging and gives him 

 a good many cheers. The next two days the voting took 

 place, and what a pleasant short affair it is now to what it 

 used to be. There was some rioting and some who voted 

 for Davenport had all their windows broke. . . . 



Charles Langton and Charlotte are still with us. He 

 has offered himself for a visit at Lord Craven's and Char- 

 lotte will stay here the while. It is very nice of him not 

 getting impatient to be at 'home again. We are all very 

 fond of him. His manners to Mamma are quite charming, 

 so playful and attentive. He has not a spark of the natural 

 enmity that most people have for their mothers-in-law. 

 Mamma enjoyed her little trip to see their living very much. 

 The country about Onibury 1 is very pretty, and the poor 

 people well off and a very small parish. 



As to her husband's going into Parliament Bessy wrote 

 to Jessie Sismondi (22 Dec. 1832), that she is not only 

 gratified at seeing his character rated as it deserves, but 

 that she cannot help thinking it will give their children a 

 lift in point of station, " a worldly feeling I must confess, 

 but one I find myself not able to contend with." In the 

 same letter she speaks of her listlessness and languor making 

 it painful for her to write; and it is evident now that her 

 health had seriously failed. In March, 1833, she promises 

 Jessie not to be so long again without writing, and speaks of 

 lying awake a prey to sorrowful musings. But she men- 

 tions her enjoyment of her first grandchild, Godfrey (the 

 son of Frank), and how she is continually finding new 

 beauties in his "little snub face." The letter ends: You 

 are par excellence the best beloved of all the sisterhood, 

 and what is more you are not envied on that account." 



1 Charles Langton' s living to which he had just been appointed, 

 between Church Stretton and Ludlow. 



