262 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvni 



enough in this world of chance and change. Meanwhile let 

 those that remain in it try to like and cherish one another, 

 and write soon. Direct to Perristone near Ross, where we 

 mean to return, slowly, slowly. I have given all my hurry 

 to my nephew, which he calls dispatch, and will run as un- 

 mercifully as you would have done poor Lady Davy's pair 

 of horses. And do tell me a great deal of news I won't 

 begin again, so good-bye. 



Madame Sismondi to her niece Emma Wedgwood. 



CHNE, July 29, 1834. 



. . . We found all well on our return last Wednesday, 

 and I thank Heaven no ill news from England in the many 

 letters that lay waiting for me on the tables, and which I 

 opened with a beating heart. I so enjoyed the first part 

 of our tour; all the little circumstances and incidents were 

 always so much in our favour that I superstitiously began 

 to fear some ill luck at the end. At Vevay I met poor Mrs 

 Marcet for the first time since her loss. 1 She was overcome 

 almost to fainting at first, but attributed it to heat and 

 fatigue, said she would lie down and return to us in half- 

 an-hour, which she did, talking on indifferent subjects and 

 no allusion was made on either side to what, it was but too 

 visible, both our hearts were full of. She intended to return 

 with us in the steamboat the next day, but when the morning 

 came she had not courage. I am nearly sure it was because 

 we were in the boat she would suffer less with strangers. 



We, that is Sismondi and I and our portmanteau, left 

 Schinznach on the 9th of this month in a nice little one- 

 horse cabriolet, that stole softly and quietly over the ground, 

 and quick too, directing our course north-eastward. We 

 saw the baths of Baden, Zurich, . . . Constance, St Gall, 

 the pretty Lake of Wallenstadt, where I read your name 

 with your father's in the inn book which vividly brought 

 back the time you so sweetly alluded to, my Emma, winch 



1 The death of her husband. 



