£ s. d. Pocket 10 0 0 Klein, (final account on dismissal to Rotterdam, paying his passage, and a shilling or two over) 30 0 0 Downs, for my London quarterly pensioners 25 0 0 Morley, (Oxford bookbinding) 3 1 6 Easter presents 5 0 0 -------- 73 1 6 -------- Leaving a balance of 26 18 6 to be added to the £200 of personal expenses in this month’s accounts. About a hundred and twenty of this has gone in a fortnight’s posting, with Mr. and Mrs. Severn, from London to Coniston, stopping to see St. Albans, Peterborough, Croyland, Stamford and Burleigh, Grantham, Newark, Lincoln, our new ground at Sheffield, Pomfret, Knaresborough, Ripon, Fountain’s, Richmond, Mortham Tower, and Brougham Castle. A pleasant life, you think? Yes,—if I led an unpleasant one, however dutiful, I could not write any of my books, least of all, Fors. But I am glad, if you honestly think it a pleasant life; why, if so, my richer readers, do you drive only round the parks, every day, instead of from place to place through England, learning a thing or two on the road? Of the rest of the ‘self’ money, I leave further account till next month: it is not all gone yet. I give, however, for a typical example, one of Downs’s weekly bills, reaching the symmetrical total of £7 7s. 7d., or a guinea and a penny a day, which I think is about the average. Of the persons named therein as receiving weekly wage, Hersey is our old under-gardener, now rheumatic, and as little able to earn his dinner as I am myself; Rusch, my old lapidary, who cuts in the course of the week what pebbles he can for me; Best, an old coachman, who used to come to us from livery-stable on occasion, and now can’t drive any more; Christy, an old woman who used to work for my mother. 1876. £ s. d. April 22. Cash in hand 30 12 8 -------- 29. Men’s Wages 4 1 0 Coachman’s Book 1 16 10 Charities 0 16 0 Sundries 0 13 9 --------- £7 7 7 --------- April 29. Balance in hand £23 5 1