We tried to get up a dance two nights ago--a total failure I thought. Most of the people here are invalids, and as there are no carriages, and no carriage-roads, they can only come out in Jhanpamas (a sort of open Sedan), and the nights are cold. The whole company only amounted to forty, and I thought I never saw a heavier dance, but some of them thought it quite delightful, and I am afraid will wish for another. It is even more delightful than I expected to be in these hills; the climate is perfection, and the pleasure of sitting out of doors looking at those lovely snowy mountains, and breathing real cool air, is more than I can say. The change from those broiling plains was so sudden. At Bareilly the thermometer was at 90 in our tents at night, and the next day at Sabāthu it was at 55 in the middle of the day. Such a long breath as I drew! These mountains are very beautiful, but not so picturesque, I think, as the Pyrenees--in fact they are too gigantic to be sketchable, and there are no waterfalls, no bridges, no old corners, that make the Pyrenees so picturesque, independent of their ragged shapes. But I love these Himalayas, good old things, all the same, and mean to enjoy these seven months as much as possible to make up for the horrors of the two last years, and as for looking forward, it is no use just now. I think George will find Calcutta so extravagantly hot that perhaps he will consent to go home sooner. That would be very satisfactory. The deaths there have been very numerous this year. Almost all the few people we knew intimately in the two years we were there, are dead--and almost all of them young people. Do you remember my writing to you about poor Mrs. Beresford’s death? He is here now with a second wife, twenty years younger than himself, to whom he engaged himself three months after the first wife’s death; never told anybody, so we all took the trouble of going on pitying him with the very best pity we had to spare! Such a waste! What became of your second book? I cannot even see it amongst the advertisements. I am disconsolate that we have had the last number of _Pickwick_, the only bit of fun in India. It is one of the few books of which there has been a Calcutta reprint, lithographs and all. I have not read it through in numbers more than ten times, but now it is complete I think of studying it more correctly. Mention much about your children when you write. I find the letters in which my friends tell me about themselves and their children are much pleasanter than mere gossip. They really interest me--there is the difference between biography and history. My best love to your mother, and remember me to Mr. L. It is very odd how easily I can bring your face to mind when I think of you. Some faces I cannot put together at all cleverly, but I see you quite correctly and easily. Don’t alter, there’s a dear. Your most affectionate E. E. _Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville._ SIMLA, _June 10, 1838_.