HOME LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. 357 



Iu May I contracted a troublesome cough, which I have not 

 been able to shake off, and as country air seemed the best 

 medicine, the first week in July we set off for the County 

 Wicklow, accompanied by Dr. and Mrs. Hooker of Kew, with 

 whom we spent a very pleasant time among its picturesque 

 lakes and mountains. I had not been there for twenty-five 

 years at the least. Our head-quarters were at the Seven 

 Churches, "by that lake whose gloomy shore," &c, where, 

 finding a comfortable inn, we made excursions on cars from it 

 in all directions. The weather was superb, splendid sunshine 

 and blue skies, such as we don't often have, even in summer. 



When our friends left us, we went on to Limerick and County 

 Tipperary, and in August returned to Dublin, intending to 

 finish the summer in the Highlands of Scotland, but my cough 



being rather worse than better, Dr. S sent us to Normandy 



for warm dry air and general change. Thither we of course 

 set off, going via Jersey, where we stayed a few days, and then 

 went on to St. Malo, where we landed 26th August. Here we 

 crossed the harbour to St. Servan, where we found a comfort- 

 able boarding-house. St. Servan is much like any other 

 French country town of the old school. It is close to the sea, 

 and has pleasant suburbs within easy distances. When we got 

 there the climate was most delicious — clear air, warm sun, and 

 pleasant sea breezes; and we should have seen much of the 

 vicinage but that I fell ill, and was left too weak to do much 

 more than crawl about before the summer was gone and the 

 blustery weather coming. So towards the end of September we 

 set out homewards, and during the ten days it took us to 

 reach Southampton we had most lovely weather, for which great 

 blessing I hope we felt thankful. 



The country as we passed through' Normandy and Brittany 

 Mas very pretty and picturesque, and the fine old towns very 

 quaint and interesting. Our route lay by Dol, Avranches, 

 Vire, and Caen, to Havre. We rested two days at Vire, a 

 quaint old place. I have a botanical friend, M. Lenormand, 

 living near it, and though correspondents of upwards of twenty 

 years' standing, we had never met. We found him a most 

 delightful, middle-aged man, and spent our time very happily 

 with him. He seemed as if he could not make half enough of 

 us. I never met so cordial, and at the same time so thoroughly 



