218 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xv 



off for Islington in a coronetted Jarvey ; as we came through 

 Oxford Street I saw a chariot with better horses (ours were 

 miserable) so I tumbled them both out into the street with 

 their bags &c. in their hands and trans-shipped them the 

 Jarvey must have thought it a manoeuvre to puzzle pursuers. 

 At Islington we drank tea in a lively apartment looking 

 down five different roads and there I washed my hands of 

 them. Edward Holland did not come back from Gloster- 

 shire till the next day, when he was pleased to express his 

 regret at not having returned before their departure in very 

 handsome terms. Neither of them will ever be mistress of 

 Dumbleton, nor you nor I either. I am sure that he will 

 make an alliance in Glostershire. As to his two sisters I 

 have seen more of them lately than ever and I have made 

 up my mind that if Mrs Holland should object to let me 

 have both of them but this is premature. Last Thursday 

 I went to the uproar [opera] with a party which would have 

 been a very pleasant one but in came Miss Defil and she 

 played the devil with the party for a more odious little 

 piece of clockwork I never saw; she neither smiled nor 

 sneezed nor " asked if our tea was to our liking," and I will 

 lay 10 to a little, that when they come to cut her up under 

 the new anatomy bill they will find that her heart beats 

 with a horizontal escapement. Malibran was Susannah and 

 Sontag the Countess. Hensleigh and one of the Mr Defils 

 came up from the Pit (where Devils are generally supposed 

 to come from) ; this one seems to me to think Charlotte 

 Holland worth cultivating, which pleases her; the worst 

 thing about him is that he says ve'y cu'ious if you know 

 what that means, but perhaps that may be only his spring 

 voice for Greenwood tells me that all the men who come to 

 town in the spring leave their country voices behind them 

 mth their velveteen jackets. Conclusion : I hate all male and 

 female cockneys and, as Goldsmith says, ' my heart un- 

 metropolized fondly turns to " my country cousins. There 

 never was any one so improved as Catherine [Darwin]. 

 Even in looks, as well as internal matters, she stands very 

 high in my list. I always thought Cuthbert Romilly an ass 



