4i4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But good Heavens ! what a deal I have written about my sons. I 

 have had some hard work this autumn with the microscope; but this 

 is over, and I have only to write out the papers for the Linnean Society. 

 We have had a good many visitors; but none who would have inter- 

 ested you, except perhaps Mrs. Ritchie, the daughter of Thackeray, 

 who is a most amusing and pleasant person. I have not seen Huxley 

 for some time, but my wife heard this morning from Mrs. Huxley, 

 who wrote from her bed, with a bad account of herself and several of 

 her children; but none, I hope, are at all dangerously ill. Farewell, 

 my kind, good friend. 



Many thanks about the picture, which if I survive you, and this I 

 do not expect, shall be hung in my study as a perpetual memento of 

 you.* 



* Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, in his seventy-fourth year. 



