22O A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xv 



makes me gay and nothing long sad. Lady Davy 1 came a 

 few hours after our return. I suffered her to go away to 

 her inn without inviting her to return to us. I fancied I 

 saw that she was disappointed; it is painful to disappoint 

 people's expectation of you, and I felt uneasy ; and yesterday 

 when we dined with her at her inn and saw that she was 

 melancholy, solitary, nervous, I prest her to return to us, 

 and she comes on Saturday to breakfast. If the weather 

 permits we are going another little tour with her. 



Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Emma Allen. 



MAER, Sept. 3rd, 1829. 



. . . Jessie [Wedgwood] is I think prettier than I ever saw 

 her, and she really is uncommonly pretty. She went with 

 us to the Archery on Thursday last, and was very much 

 admired ; and what is more, she got the first prize, a beautiful 

 pair of earrings. I had the three prizes in my possession at 

 setting out, in right of my office of Lady Patroness, and I 

 narrowly escaped bringing them all back again as I did 

 before, but luckily by a little juggling between Fanny and 

 Emma, they contrived to let Mrs Meeke in for the last prize. 

 Fanny was entitled to the two first prizes, but it being a law 

 that they were not to go to the same person, Fanny made 

 her election for the second prize, which gave Jessie the first. 

 It is comical enough that even a visitor at Maer should be so 

 successful, as in the case of both Jessie and Miss Acland. 

 As for Fanny and Emma, they are quite dragonesses, but 

 nothing pleased me so much in their success, as the sincerity 

 with which they tried to waive their glories in favour of the 



1 Lady Davy had been a widow a few months. Her late husband, 

 Sir Humphry Davy, the famous chemist, was an early friend of 

 Josiah and Tom Wedgwood, who made his acquaintance in 1797, 

 when he was only a doctor's boy at Penzance, and he afterwards 

 helped Tom in his photographic work. Lady Davy was a clever 

 and brilliant woman and made a figure in London society. She 

 was a brunette of brunettes, and Sydney Smith, one of her admirers, 

 used to say she was " as brown as a dry toast." Faraday said of 

 her, her temper made " it oftentimes go wrong with me, with herself 

 and with Sir Humphry." She died in 1855. 



