this money by their grandfather's will as their due, and from our hands as a gift--(the way in which they will look at it). The letter to you was sent off without delay, in order that, in case of any dissatisfaction whatever on your part, your wishes might have the better chance of being made known to us during the old gentleman's life. I doubt not that your thoughts, whatever they may be, will be on the way to me before this reaches you; and I can have as little doubt what they are. You know Mr Blunt says, that men are created to rob their sisters,--a somewhat partial view of the objects and achievements of mortal existence, it must be owned, and a statement which I conceive the course of your life, for one, will not go to confirm; but a man must have had a good deal of experience, of what he is talking of, before he could make so sweeping a generalisation from the facts of life; and I am afraid Mr Blunt has some reason for what he says. Medical men receive many confidences in sick rooms, you know; and some, among others, which had better be reserved for the lawyer. What I have seen in this way leads me to imagine that my grandfather's notion is a very common one,--that women have little occasion for money, and do not know how to manage it; and that their property is to be drawn upon to the very last, to meet the difficulties and supply the purposes of their brothers. On the utter injustice and absurdity of such a notion there can be no disagreement between you and me; nor, I imagine, in our actions with regard to it. "I heard from Emily yesterday. The letter is more than half full of stories about the children, and accounts of her principles and plans with regard to them. She writes on the same subjects to you, no doubt, for her heart is full of them. Her husband finds the post of consul at a little Spanish port rather a dull affair, as we anticipated, and groans at the mention of Bristol or Liverpool shipping, he says. But I like the tone of his postscript very well. He is thankful for the honest independence his office affords him, and says he can tolerate his Spanish neighbours (though they are as ignorant as Turkish ladies), for the sake of his family, and of the hope of returning, sooner or later, to live in his own country, after having discharged his duty to his children. Theirs must be an irksome life enough, as much of it as is passed out of their own doors: but they seem to be finding out that it is not so much the _where_ and the _how_, as the _what_ people are, that matters to their peace of mind; and I suppose those who love each other, and have settled what they are living for, can attain what they most want, nearly so well in one place as another.