twelvemonth....

Immediately after breakfast on Saturday I went down on my knees and
packed till Emily came to walk with me, and packed after I came in till
it was time to go shopping and visiting. I went to bid the L----'s
good-bye; we dined with the Procters, and had a pleasant dinner: Mr. and
Mrs. Grote, Rogers, Browning, Harness and his sister. In the evening I
went to Miss Berry's, where Lady Charlotte Lindsay and I discoursed
about you, and she pitied you greatly for having, upon the top of all
your troubles, forgotten your keys....

Sunday morning I packed instead of going to church, and, in fact, packed
the blessed livelong day, with an interval of rest derived from an
interminable visit from Frederick Byng (_alias_ Poodle). Yesterday my
father and Victoire (my aunt), and Adelaide and E---- (who, to my
infinite joy, came home on Saturday), dined with us. My father was
better, I think, than the last evening we were with him, though, of
course, a good deal out of spirits. Victoire was pretty well, but quite
surprised and mortified at hearing that I would not suffer her to pack
my things, for fear of its fatiguing her; and told me how she had been
turning in her mind her best way of contriving to be here packing all
day, and home in Charlotte Street in time to give my father his dinner.
She is Dall's own sister!

Yesterday I completed, with Emily's assistance (which nearly drove me
mad), the packing of the great huge chest of books, boxes, etc., and she
and I walked together, but it was bitter cold and ungenial, regular
_beasterly_ wind. (Mrs. Grote says _she_ invented that name for it, and,
for reasons which will be obvious to you, I gave it up to her without a
blow.) In the afternoon I went shopping with Adelaide, and then flew
about, discharging my own commissions.

In the evening our "first grand party of the season came off;" nearly
two hundred people came, and seemed, upon the whole, tolerably well
amused. Adelaide and Miss Masson and I sang, and Benedict played, and it
all went off very well. There were six policeman at the door, and Irish
Jack-o'-lanterns without count; "the refreshment table was exceedingly
elegantly set out" by _Gunter_--at a price which we do not yet know....

I dread our sea-voyage for myself, for all sorts of physical reasons;
morally, I dare say I shall benefit from a season of absolute quiet and
the absence of all excitement. The chicks are well; they are to go down
to Liverpool