I’m afraid I shall not be able to come to you on January 7th, as you kindly proposed at Homburg. I’m so very very sorry; it’s an immense disappointment. But I’ve just heard that it has been settled that mamma and the children come abroad for a part of the winter, and mamma wishes me to go with them to Hyères, where Georgina has been ordered for her lungs. She has not been at all well these three months, and now that the damp weather has begun she’s very poorly indeed; so that last week papa decided to have a consultation, and he and mamma went with her up to town and saw some three or four doctors. They all of them ordered the south of France, but they didn’t agree about the place; so that mamma herself decided for Hyères, because it’s the most economical. I believe it’s very dull, but I hope it will do Georgina good. I’m afraid, however, that nothing will do her good until she consents to take more care of herself; I’m afraid she’s very wild and wilful, and mamma tells me that all this month it has taken papa’s positive orders to make her stop indoors. She’s very cross (mamma writes me) about coming abroad, and doesn’t seem at all to mind the expense papa has been put to—talks very ill-naturedly about her loss of the hunting and even perhaps of the early spring meetings. She expected to begin to hunt in December and wants to know whether anybody keeps hounds at Hyères. Fancy that rot when she’s too ill to sit a horse or to go anywhere. But I daresay that when she gets there she’ll be glad enough to keep quiet, as they say the heat’s intense. It may cure Georgina, but I’m sure it will make the rest of us very ill. Mamma, however, is only going to bring Mary and Gus and Fred and Adelaide abroad with her: the others will remain at Kingscote till February (about the 3rd) when they’ll go to Eastbourne for a month with Miss Turnover, the new governess, who has proved such a very nice person. She’s going to take Miss Travers, who has been with us so long, but is only qualified for the younger children, to Hyères, and I believe some of the Kingscote servants. She has perfect confidence in Miss T.; it’s only a pity the poor woman has such an odd name. Mamma thought of asking her if she would mind taking another when she came; but papa thought she might object. Lady Battledown makes all her governesses take the same name; she gives £5 more a year for the purpose. I forget what it is she calls them; I think it’s Johnson (which to me always suggests a lady’s maid). Governesses shouldn’t have too pretty a name—they shouldn’t have a nicer name than the family.