140 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xi 



it, and when that had not much effect, she gave her a shilling 

 to put off reading it till she went home, and gave her Guy 

 Mannering and the Romance of the Forest to read meanwhile ; 

 but she says she would like to have the book again and give 

 back the shilling. We dine at 6 and the whole morning is 

 taken up with the lessons, except about half an hour given 

 Mr Sor to run on the gravel walks. Then after tea till bed- 

 time Mr Sor sits at the pianoforte and plays and sings 

 different things from memory, sometimes roars a whole 

 chorus till he is quite red in the face, or plays the guitar. 

 Then all we young ladies perform our different perform- 

 ances. Charlotte and I always sing a trio with Mr Sor, 

 which is perfectly delightful, he sings so beautifully. I 

 should like to spend our whole lessons singing with him 

 instead of learning. Last night he made us laugh till we 

 cried with taking off the whole French opera, Lais, who 

 roars in the depths of his stomach, and Madame Somebody 

 who shakes her two arms at once. 



There is just come in a heap of new music and everybody is 

 rushing to examine it, so I shall go after the rest. . . . 



The life at Maer, with its careless freedom and absence of 

 restraint, was a great contrast to that at the Mount. There 

 all was orderly and correct, and everyone must conform to 

 the Doctor's views of what was right. He was extremely 

 kind, and my mother was attached to him, but she never 

 felt quite at ease in his presence. No one must speak so 

 that he did not hear, and she would describe how he would 

 say, " Hm, hm, what is Emma saying ?' : I remember her 

 telling us that a boy was naturally uncongenial to the 

 Doctor. He was cautious, even timid as to bodily dangers, 

 though with great moral fearlessness, and the venturesome- 

 ness and untidiness of a boy were equally distasteful to 

 him. No son however could have been more devoted and 

 more reverent than our father. Indeed, when he said, " My 

 father thought or did so and so," we all knew that in his 

 mind there could then be no further question in the matter ; 

 what his father did or thought was for him absolutely true, 

 right, and wise. 



Caroline and Susan Darwin both had high spirits, abound- 

 ing life, and deep feeling. 



