1826-1827] 



CHAPTER XIV 



18261827 



The Sismondis in England Bessy and her daughter Charlotte at 

 Ampthill Fanny and Emma Wedgwood at Geneva Sarah 

 Wedgwood's generosity- -The Prince of Denmark- -Edward 

 Drewe's love-affair Harry Wedgwood on French plays- 

 Fanny and Emma return home Lady Byron at Geneva. 



IN the spring of 1826 the Sismondis came over to England. 

 Fanny Allen wrote of Jessie (May 25, 1826), " her counte- 

 nance is as charming as ever, which makes her better worth 

 looking at than any beauty I know." Harry Wedgwood 

 described Sismondi's bows as tremendous: " he and I salute 

 one another in the style of the frontispiece to Les Precieuses 

 Ridicules, and he ought to have married good Mistress 

 Accost instead of Aunt Jessie." 



After visiting the Mackintoshes in London they went, 

 towards the end of June, to Maer. Bessy wrote: "He is 

 such an entire lover of music that the evenings are com- 

 pletely filled up with it." " Je n'ai pas eprouve un moment 

 un plaisir egal a celui que me donnait ' Un palpito atroce ' ou 

 4 notte soave,' Sismondi told Elizabeth, writing from 

 Paris, where he went at the end of August, leaving Jessie 

 to pay her visits to Cresselly and elsewhere alone. Jessie was 

 not allowed to see Mrs Surtees, her poor imprisoned " Sad.' : 

 as she called her. This was the only blot on her stay of 

 many months in England. 



As these visits drew to a close, Bessy decided to send 

 Fanny and Emma back with Jessie to spend eight months 

 at Geneva. It was an effort to part with them, but she 

 thought it would be good for the girls, they wished it, and it 

 would soften the parting for Jessie. 



Madame Sismondi also had her nephew Edward Drewe, 

 a boy of 21, to convoy out. He had left Oxford, but he 

 was not intended for any profession, being the heir-expectant 



