Your welcome letter, dated Slough, Oct. 22nd, had not only the most beneficial effect on my spirits, but gave the greatest pleasure to the whole family, for I find Groskopf had been under great apprehension for your safety from the many reported accidents among the shipping on the English coasts. Count Münster, it is said, lies dangerously ill in consequence of the fright he suffered on his passage (his lady and his children were with him), and Groskopf imagined he must have left Calais at the same time with you. But, thank God, all is well! All I meet with lament your leaving us so soon. Gauss has been here, and they say he was quite inconsolable at having missed you. Hauptmann Müller was charged with compliments, which he intends to deliver himself if I will give him leave. To be sure! and Olbers, whom Dr. Mühry saw in Bremen, was sorry not to have seen you, as you had been so near. The Duke of Cambridge, whom Dietrich met in the street, asked about you, but we could not trace you farther than Antwerp. I believe half Hanover would have been gratified if you could have made a longer stay with us. Dr. Groskopf will one day come to England I am afraid, and talk you deaf; he is, however, a very good sort of man, and desires me to tell you that if you wanted any books you might command him, he would send you anything you wanted. What gives me the most pleasure in reading over your letter, is your telling me that your dear mother is not in the least altered in her looks, and that she has been so considerate as to give me in her own handwriting the assurance that you are _extremely_ well. That I may yet often hear the same, wishes your most affectionate aunt, CAR. HERSCHEL. P.S.—[To Lady Herschel].... My knowing so well to what noble purposes an experimental philosopher may use his fortune, it would make me very unhappy if my dear nephew was cramped in his. And if I could do any good by relinquishing my annuity I would leave Hanover and live on my pension in the country most willingly, and am only sorry that I have no other means of showing the care and affection I have for my dear nephew. But I beg no other notice may be taken of all I have written than often—when my nephew or yourself cannot write—to inform me by the hand of Miss B—— of all your joys and sorrows, that I may, though at this distance, sympathise with the same. If my nephew cannot be easily supplied with the Berliner Jahrbuch, I beg he will let me know, for I have got them by me, and can send them by the messenger in January. * * * * * FROM J. F. W. HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL. LONDON, _December, 1824_. DEAR AUNT,—