“The time for my brother’s inoculation draws near, and though I have a very good opinion of that method of having the smallpox, yet I cannot enjoy a perfect tranquillity of mind till it is over. I would fain persuade him to have it done while I am in the country, but he will not grant my request; for my Pappa, I believe, will not let me go to Bullstrode at all, if I don’t go before that is over; and my brother therefore waits for my departure, that I may not be banished for six weeks or two months, which he imagines would be melancholy for me these long evenings, as I should have no friend with me, and am not able to divert myself with books now my eyes are bad.” The duchess was waiting for Lady Oxford’s departure from Bullstrode. Lady Oxford is often alluded to as “the Speaker” by the duchess, the same name, as has been mentioned, was bestowed on Mrs. Robinson by her children. Elizabeth’s health being so indifferent, her parents wished her to consult Dr. Mead, and early in October she proceeded to London with her brother Tom, where she stayed a few days with Mrs. Donnellan in Bond Street, and on October 13 joined her beloved friends at Bullstrode, the duchess sending her coach to London to fetch her. Matthew was to be inoculated as soon as the coach returned to Mount Morris from taking Elizabeth to town, as, till the smallpox appeared, he was to take the air daily in it; but the inoculation did not take, and Elizabeth’s tender fears for her brother were allayed. [Page heading: MARRIAGE OF LORD SANDWICH] The next letter of interest is on October 20, to her mother-- “I return you many thanks for your directions for the apron, which I will carefully follow; as to the silver thread I do not approve the use of it, as all great artists work for immortality, and my sister will find a little time will tarnish her work if there is a mixture of silver in it.... I honour Lord Sandwich[172] for his wise and generous contempt of money in a point in which there are other things superior to it; he bears an excellent character, there is much prudence in knowing how to separate one’s particular happiness from that which is reckoned so in the world’s opinion: if Lord Sandwich takes greater pleasure in the conversation of a fine woman than in viewing a collection of medals and pictures, he is right to prefer Miss Dolly Fane with £5000 to Miss Spinckes with £50,000.... He has a good estate sufficient for the becoming state of a nobleman.... Miss Fane is a happy woman to have a lover so great, so generous, and so good. Love has a good right over the marriages of men, but not of women; for men raise their wives to their ranks, women stoop to their husbands, if they choose below themselves. I think all our neighbours are in a marrying humour. I wish some of them had married two and twenty years ago, we should have had now a gallant young neighbourhood.”