174 SURVEY OF THE SNO WDON REGION CHAP, v 



referred to in a letter to William Ramsay, written from 

 Llanfairynghornwy on Christmas Day : * We were 

 detained at Bangor at work till the last moment, and 

 when done we threw ourselves into the rail, and fled 

 away here yesterday evening to eat a Christmas pie 

 with our jolly friends the Williamses, and eke a goose 

 with apple sauce. Marry, come up ; I ll stay a day or 

 two and make myself merry when I am here, for we ve 

 been working extra hard. They (the W ms.) are 

 bricks, and no mistake. It is no joke to enter into a 

 contention with one of the young ladies, Miss Louisa ; 

 she is so witty that you might just as well cut your 

 eye-teeth before you begin. From the very first he 

 was greatly interested in this bright, clever daughter 

 of the house. In his diary he makes frequent refer 

 ence to her : Wit and a sense of the ludicrous is her 

 characteristic ; sense she has a good deal of, and warm 

 heartedness no end of. Commenced the year (1851) 

 dancing a polka in the hotel ball-room, Chester. 

 Trifling and merry enough, I believe, with the witty 

 Louisa for a partner ; not ominous, I opine, of future 

 partnership. Whether ominous or not, the acquaint 

 ance developed into sincere affection on both sides, 

 and he found here at last the loving and devoted 

 woman who a year and a half afterwards was to become 

 his wife. But these pleasant dissipations, so fitly 

 closing a long and arduous season of field-work, soon 

 came to an end ; and by the 5th of January Ramsay 

 was once more at his post in the Survey Office in 

 London. 



The building in Jermyn Street was now rapidly- 

 approaching completion. The collections at Craig s 

 Court were being transferred to their new home. 

 Already the offices of the Survey had been removed. 



