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Cambridge (Springfield)

Feb 10 ─ (83)

Down,

Beckenham, Kent.

Railway Station

Orpington, S.E.R.

My dear George

I was rejoiced to have yr letter of the 6th from Pau. & to find you were really better. Pau sounds beautiful to look from; but I fancy it does not have the variety of any place with not such a wide plain. I returned from London on Monday & Hen. followed me on Tuesday — She is almost as well as usual — She found it so cold that we resolved to move into the dining room, & I am now sitting at my

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writing table, which I never used to be able to do in the other room without being chilled — It is certainly a more comf. room, & I can see thro' muslin blinds, who comes to the door. We have got a large linen drugget to cover Mrs Jebb's Persian carpet so that it won't get any harm — It feels the difference of being in doors & not out of doors — I am afraid B. will inevitably become conceited over his heraldry — The other day, walking w. Frank he saw a coat of arms in a window. He brought out his notebook to put it down & the shop man came out with due compliments on such a "very young gent" knowing about it —

A new game however has come in & displaced heraldry. He has a robbers cave behind the sofa & steals every thing he can lay hands on in the room — so that it causes a good deal of tidying afterwards. Bessy writes most cheerfully from Grasse (by the way Laura invited you there, one inducement being the absence of Hope) It seems a most cheerful place owing to Laura's

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acquaintance. Mr Cross makes himself very merry over Mrs Synnot. She is a bad walker & compared Bessy & herself to Pegasus & a cart horse. Mr C. invited B. to take a walk with him, but hoped she wd walk all the morning first for fear she shd be too much for him. Miss Cross talked about G. Eliot to B. with great admiration & said they all liked Mr Lewes so much? She said they had always felt 2 of the greatest obligations to H. Spencer (I sent you on a letter from him) one was that he had introduced them to the Lewes's & the other that he had advised their mother, à propos to buttered toast, to let them have whatever they liked. The walks & drives at Grasse are endless & Laura's maid quite as m. of a Pegasus as Bessy.

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I am very glad you are able to do work — I can quite fancy that every thing comes under a different point of view when you have to teach it — Not knowing anything of the matter I shd think an inaugural lecture wd be a good thing & make a splash —

This Cambridge Life suits Fr, his time is so entirely filled up & he has constant intercourse with men, which is invigorating, & I feel as if marriage was no longer an impossibility with him.

The Horaces had a pleasant dinner meeting Protheros & Hughes — Mrs H. seems v. nice a quiet modest looking little woman —

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The next Leo you have please forward to Miss Darwin

Grand Hotel Grasse

Alpes Maritimes

yours my dear George

E. Darwin