HEVERSHAM, MILNTHORPE, _23d August 1867_.

MY DEAR K.--I meant my first frame letter from here to be to you,
so now I am beginning it. I have the morning room which you used
to have, and enjoy it very much. How nice the house is, and how you
must have worked to make it so. Mrs. Argles and Mrs. Braithwaite
seem very much impressed with all your hard work. Is it true that
those little three-cornered things in the pink room with the china
on them were washhand stands? You have made a capital use of
them.... I walked up the lower Head yesterday, then stayed there
and had some tea brought me, and afterwards walked to the school
through all those stiles. After the meeting we came back by the
road. I have been able to walk better here, and it is such a
pleasure. I can't tell you how much I enjoy moving more freely.
Wednesday I walked as far as the house at Levens and back after a
rest at a cottage near, where we found a very nice woman who
certainly talked Westmoreland, but really with a pretty accent....
Your loving sister, BESSIE.

The difficulty in walking, to which she alludes, had again increased;
and in 1867 or 1868 she consulted Sir James Paget with regard to it. He
thought it proceeded from weak ankles and general debility, and
prescribed rest and care.

She was at Queen Anne Street in February 1868, and much interested in a
public dinner at Chichester at which her father was to be present Dean
Hook wrote to give her an account of the proceedings.

THE DEANERY, CHICHESTER, _5th February 1868_.

MY DEAR MISS GILBERT--I cannot help writing to tell you that the
dear good Bishop was yesterday more animated and more eloquent than
I ever heard him. He seemed so well and so happy that I am glad he
went. It was indeed an ovation to his lordship, as much as to the
Mayor; he was so enthusiastically received. As I knew that you were
anxious about him, under the notion that he was doing too much, I
trouble you with this note. The calm serenity with which he always
does his duty, and in performing it does his best, is a very
beautiful trait in his character, and I doubt not now that he will
get through his visitation duties without suffering too much from
fatigue. It is not work, it is worry which tries a man, and all his
clergy will exert themselves