It was a sort of repayment of a tender chromolithographic (!) debt.

Do you remember, when Fredericton was our home, and when everything pretty from Old England did look so very pretty--how on one of those home visits from which he brought back bits of civilization--the Bishop brought _me_ a "chromo" of dogs and a fox which has hung in every station we've had since?

Now--as a friend's privilege is--I will talk without fear or favour of myself! The last real contact with you was the Bishop's too brief peep at us in Bowdon--a shadowy time out of which his Amethyst ring flashes on my mind's eye. No! Not Amethyst--what IS the name? Sapphire!--(I have a little mental confusion on the subject. I have a weak--a very weak corner--in my heart for another Bishop, an old friend of your Bishop's--Bishop Harold Browne; and have had the honour now and again of wearing his rings on my thumb--a momentary relaxation of discipline and due respect, which I doubt if your Bishop would admit!!! though I hope he has a little love for me, frightened as I now and then am of him!!!!

The last time but one I was at Farnham, I was asked to stay on another two days to catch the Brownes' fortieth wedding-day. Just as we were going down to dinner I reproached the Bishop for not having on his "best" ring! Very luckily--for he said he always made a point of it on his wedding-day--left me like a hot potato in the middle of the stairs and flew off to his room, and returned with _the_ grand sapphire!)

Well, dear--that's a parenthesis--to go back to Bowdon. I was not to boast of there, and after the move to York, and I had fitted up my house and made up for lost time in writing work, I was a very much broken creature, keeping going to Jenner and getting orders to rest!--and then came the order to Malta, not six months after we were sent to York, and I stayed to pack up and sent out all our worldly goods and chattels, and then started myself, and was taken ill in Paris and had to come back, and have been "of no account" for three years.

Well. My news is now far better than once I hoped it ever could be.

I'm not strong, but I can work in moderation, though I can't "rackett"

the least bit. And--Rex is to come home in Spring!--the season of hope and _nest-building_--and I am trying not to wonder my wits away as to what part of the British Isles it will be in which I shall lay the cross-sticks and put in the moss and wool of our next nest!! There is every reason to suppose we shall be "at home" for five years, I am thankful to say....

Rex loved Malta, and _hates_ Ceylon. But he has been _very_ good and patient about it.

Latterly he has consoled himself a good deal with the study of Sanscrit, which he means me also to acquire, though I have not got far yet! It is a beautiful character. He says, "Of all the things I have tried Sanscrit is the most utterly delicious! Of the alphabet alone there are (besides the ten vowels and thirty-three simple consonants) rather more than two hundred compound consonants," etc., etc.! He adds, "[Sanskrit: aayi]

are my detached initials, but I could write my whole name in 'Devanagiri,' or 'Writing of the G.o.ds.'"

TO A.E.

_Ecclesfield._ December 8, 1882.

... I got back from Liverpool on Monday. When I called at the Museum on that morning a Dr. Palmer was there, who said, "I was in Taku Forts with your husband," and was very friendly. He gave me a prescription for neuralgia! and sent you his best remembrances.

First and last I have annexed one or two nice "bits of wool for our nest." For _8s._ (a price for which I could not have bought _the frame_, a black one with charming old-fashioned gold-beading of this pattern) [_sketch_] I bought a real fine old soft mezzotint, after Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Richard Burke. Oh, such a lovely face!

Looking lovelier in powder and lace frill. But a charming thing, with an old-fashioned stanza in English deploring his early death, and a motto in Latin. It was a great find, and I carried it home from the p.a.w.nbroker's in triumph!--

I have got a very nice Irish anecdote for you from Mr. Shee:

Two Irishmen (not much accustomed to fashionable circles) at a big party, standing near the door. After a long silence:

Paddy I.--"D'ye mix much in society?"

P. II.--"Not more than six tumblers in the evening."

S. John Evangelist, 1882.

C. "dealt" for me for the old j.a.panese Gentleman (pottery) on whom I turned my back at 1. He has got him for _15s._ You will be delighted with him, and I have just packed him (and a green pot lobster!) in a box with sawdust.

Do you remember how your 'genteel' clerk's wife came (starving) from Islington, or some such place, to us at Aldershot, and told me she had _sold_ all her furniture (as a nice preparation to coming to free but empty quarters) EXCEPT _her parlour pier-gla.s.s and fire-irons_?

I sometimes feel as if I bought house plenishing that packed together about as nicely as that!!! Witness my pottery old gentleman, and my bronze Crayfish....

December 20, 1882.

I am so glad you like "Sunflowers and a Rushlight." It was very pleasurable work, though hard work as usual, writing it. It was written at Grenoside, among the Sunflowers, and generally with dear old Wentworth, the big dog, walking after me or lying at my feet.

You may, or may not, have observed, that the _Times_ critic says, that "of one thing there can be no doubt"--and that is--"_Miss_ Ewing's nationality. No one but a Scotchwoman bred and born _could_ have written the 'Laird and the Man of Peace.'"

It is "rich in pawky humour." But if I can get a copy I'll send it to you. It is complimentary if not true!

I am putting a very simple inscription over our dear Brother. Do you like it?

TROUVe commonly and justly called TRUE.

FOUND 1869; LOST 1881, by A.E. and J.H.E.

TO H.K.F.G.

_Eccelsfield._ December, 1882.

... I rather HOPE to have a story for you for March, which will be laid in France. Will it do if you have it by February 8?...

It is a terribly close subject, and I shall either fail at it, or make it I hope not inferior to "Jackanapes." I don't _think_ it will be long. The characters are so few, I have only plotted it. It will be called--

"THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN": AN OLD SOLDIER'S STORY.

_DRAM. PERS._

MADAME.

HER MAID.

THE FATHER OF MADAME.

THE FATHER OF THE SERGEANT.

THE MOTHER OF THE SERGEANT.

THE SERGEANT.

THE PRIEST.

THE MURDERER.

A POODLE.

Soldiers, Peasants, Priests, Gendarmes, a Rabble, Reapers--but you know I generally overflow my limits. I hope I can do it, but it tears me to bits! and I've walked myself to bits nearly in plotting it this morning,--a very little written, but I believe I could be _ready_ by February 8. I don't think it will be as long as "Daddy Darwin," not nearly.

Please settle with Mr. B. what you will do about an ill.u.s.tration. The first scene is that of the death-bed of the sergeant's father. I think it would be quite as good a scene for ill.u.s.tration as any, and will, I trust, be ready in a day or two. Is it worth Mr. B.'s while to see if R.C. would do it in shades of brown or grey? (a very chiaroscuro scene in a tumble-down cottage, light from above). All _I_ must have is a good ill.u.s.tration or none at all. (I would send copy of scene to R.C.

and ask him.) I think it might pay, because I am certain to want to _re_publish it, and whoever I publish it with will pay half-price for the old ill.u.s.tration. I do myself believe that it might be _colour-printed_ in (say seven instead of seventeen) shades of colour (blues, and browns, and black, and yellow, and white) at much less cost than a full-coloured one, but that I leave to Mr. B.: only I have some strong theories about it, and when I come to town I mean to make Edmund Evans's acquaintance.

Strange to say, I believe I _could_ make the tale ill.u.s.trate the "Portrait of a Sergeant" if it were possible to get permission to have a thing photoed and reduced from _that_!!!--Goupil would be the channel in which to inquire--but the artist would not be a leading character, as far as I can see, so it might not be all one could wish.

But it is worth investigating....