CHAP, vii.] Regrets. 325 



grown woman, acquainted with them, to make me sometimes 

 fall short at dinner if I did not guess the angle right of the 

 piece of pudding I was helping myself to ! 



MISS HERSCHEL TO LADY HERSCHEL. 



HANOVER, July 7, 1842. 

 MY DEAREST NIECE, 



I have just now been reading your dear letter of June 

 7th once again, but I shall take care not to look into it for 

 yet a while, else I run the risk of going mad when thinking 

 of my running away from a country where I might have 

 been an eye-witness, and sometimes a partaker, of so much 

 domestic happiness. But it is no matter now, and of no 

 use fretting about it ; I am only sorry I cannot go on with 

 my history as fast as I could wish, for I feel too unwell to 

 be doing any thing for any length of time 



.... I am glad my dear nephew finds pleasure in 

 giving up so much of his valuable time to his dear sons ; 

 for my hair stands at an end on hearing what beings are 

 continually expelled from our Eton here, all owing to 

 ignorant ambitious parents trusting entirely to unprincipled 

 hirelings. 



Though my poor brother seemed to have no hands in the 

 education of his only son, I know, from having been present 

 at many private conversations he had with Dr. Gretton, that 

 nothing was done without his approbation and advice. 



.... The Astronom. Nachrichten have latterly been 

 filled with tables and too much mathematics (for me). The 

 last numbers, 450, 451, contain an account, by Struve, 

 of the purchase of Gibers' books, &c., for the library of the 

 Observatory at Pulkowa. This puts one in mind of Gibers 

 saying somewhere, I had discovered five comets. Who 

 wanted him to give the number of my comets when he 



