very much: head and heart right
feminine of the best, it seemed to me: and her experience of the World,
and the Wits, not having injured either.

I only wanted Macmillan to return the Verses {107} if he wouldn't use
them, because of my having no corrected Copy of them.

I see in the last Athenaeum a new '_and revised_' Edition of Clarissa
advertised. I suppose this 'revised' does not mean 'abridged,' without
which the Book will _not_ permanently make way, as I believe. That, you
know, I wanted to do: could do: and nearly have done;--But that, and my
Crabbe, I must leave for my Executors and Heirs to consign to
Lumber-room, or fire.

Pray let me hear of your movements, especially such as tend hitherward.
About September--Alas!--I think we shall be a good Deal here, or at
Woodbridge; probably not so much before that time.

Ever yours and Lady's, E. F. G.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 1/69.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . My Lugger Captain has just left me to go on his Mackerel Voyage to
the Western Coast; and I don't know when I shall see him again. Just
after he went, a muffled bell from the Church here began to toll for
somebody's death: it sounded like a Bell under the sea. He sat listening
to the Hymn played by the Church chimes last evening, and said he could
hear it all as if in Lowestoft Church when he was a Boy, 'Jesus our
Deliverer!' You can't think what a grand, tender, Soul this is, lodged
in a suitable carcase.

_To Mrs. W. H. Thompson_.

[1869.]

DEAR MRS. THOMPSON,

(I must get a new Pen for you--which doesn't promise to act as well as
the old one--Try another.)

Dear Mrs. Thompson--Mistress of Trinity--(this does better)--

I am both sorry, and glad, that you wrote me the Letter you have written
to me: sorry, because I think it was an effort to you, disabled as you
are; and glad, I need not say why.

I despatched Spedding's letter to your Master yesterday; I daresay you
have read it: for there was nothing extraordinary wicked in it. But, he
to talk of _my_ perversity! . . .

My Sir Joshua is a darling. A pretty young Woman ('Girl' I won't call
her) sitting with a turtle-dove in her lap, while its mate is supposed to
be flying down to it from the window. I say 'supposed,' for Sir J. who
didn't know much of the drawing of Birds, any more than of Men and Women,
has made a thing like a stuffed Bird clawing down like a Parrot. But
then, the Colour, the Dove-colour, subdued so as to carry off the rich