I know I did not answer your last letter. I wrung it from you, and it enchanted me, and at first I would not answer it for fear of plaguing you, and after a time I would not answer it for fear of plaguing me--and so on--and latterly I have done nothing but work in the garden--and how can you expect a day labourer, a plodding operative, to write? Shaky hands, aching back, etc.; but on the other side, hedges of sweet peas, lovely yellow carnations, brilliant potentillas, to balance the fatigue. George and I have quarrelled so about the watering-pot, which is mine by rights, that for fear of an entire quarrel he has been obliged to buy. I wish you could see our house and garden, “a poor thing, but mine own.” I am so fond of it, and we are so comfortable. I wonder whether you really will go to the Ionian Isles. I have just as good a chance of seeing you there as in Ireland, so if you need it I should. We shall never move again, or if we ever did, I should have a better claim to go after you to the Ionian Isles, where we have never been, than again to Ireland. Mrs. Heber,[346] the Bishop’s widow, has just published two more Vols. of her first husband’s life, and finding it lucrative, has taken a second husband, a Greek, who calls himself _Sir_ Demetrie Valsomachi, and he has carried her off to the Ionian Islands, where you will find her collecting materials for the biography of Sir Demetrie. We think and talk of nothing but Kings and Queens. It adds to the oppression of the oppressive weather even to think of all the King does. I wish he would take a chair and sit down. We have only been up once to see him, at that full-dress ball at Apsley House, where he brought brother Würtemburg,[347] and the whole thing struck me as so tiresome. I could not treat it as a pageant--only as a joke. However, tho’ our adored Sovereign is either rather mad or very foolish, he is an immense improvement on the last unforgiving animal, who died growling sulkily in his den at Windsor.[348] This man at least _wishes_ to make everybody happy, and everything he has done has been benevolent; but the Court is going to swallow up all other society. It is rather funny to see all the great people who intrigued for court places, meaning to enjoy their pensions and do no work, kept hard at it from nine in the morning till two the following morning--reviews, breakfasts, great dinners, and parties all following each other, and the whole suite kept in requisition. [Miss Villiers, who had been so much admired and the centre of attraction in her circle at Kent House, now became engaged to Mr. Lister of Armitage Park. They were married in November 1830. Mr. Lister was described by one of his contemporaries as “a refined and accomplished gentleman with literary tastes.”] _Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._ BROADSTAIRS, _Wednesday, September 1830._