One should be very much gratified at being remembered so long with _any_ kindness: and how much more gratified with so kind Remembrances as yours! I may safely say that I too remember you and my Freestone days of five and twenty years ago with a particular regard; I have been telling my Nieces at the Breakfast Table this morning, after I read your letter, how I remembered you sitting in the '_Schoolroom_'--too much sheltered with Trees--with a large Watch open before you--your Sister too, with her light hair and China-rose Complexion--too delicate!--your Father, your Mother, your Brother--of whom (your Brother) I caught a glimpse in London two years ago. And all the _Place_ at Freestone--I can walk about it as I lie awake here, and see the very yellow flowers in the fields, and hear that distant sound of explosion in some distant Quarry. The coast at Bosherston one could never forget once seen, even if it had no domestic kindness to frame its Memory in. I might have profited more of those good Days than I did; but it is not my Talent to take the Tide at its flow; and so all goes to worse than waste! But it is ungracious to talk of oneself--except so far as shall answer some points you touch on. It would in many respects be very delightful to me to walk again with you over those old Places; in other respects sad:--but the pleasure would have the upper hand if one had not again to leave it all and plunge back again. I dare not go to Wales now. I owe to Tenby the chance acquaintance of another Person who now from that hour remains one of my very best Friends. A Lad--then just 16--whom I met on board the Packet from Bristol: and next morning at the Boarding House--apt then to appear with a little _chalk_ on the edge of his Cheek from a touch of the Billiard Table Cue--and now a man of 40--Farmer, Magistrate, Militia Officer--Father of a Family--of more use in a week than I in my Life long. You too have six sons, your Letter tells me. They may do worse than do as well as he I have spoken of, though he too has sown some wild oats, and paid for doing so. _My_ family consists of some eight Nieces here, whom I have seen, all of them, from their Birth upwards--perfectly good, simple, and well-bred, women and girls; varying in disposition but all agreed among themselves and to do what they can in a small Sphere. They go about in the Village here with some consolation both for Body and Mind for the Poor, and have no desire for the Opera, nor for the Fine Folks and fine Dresses there. There is however some melancholy in the Blood of some of them--but none that mars any happiness but their own: and that but so slightly as one should expect when there was no Fault, and no Remorse, to embitter it!