I like Lord Ebrington, and he seems to like you all so much. I get on much better with him than with Lord Normanby. However, he does not give dinners and balls and parties enough, and the _trade_ complain. Dear Lord Morpeth is coming to dine with me to-day, and won’t we talk of you? He is such a charming person, and my most particular friend. You gave him to me, you know, when you went away. Mary will have told you how we had settled I was to go over and see her. Her girls are so nice, and she herself dearer than ever, and all the better from going out more. For a little while she really ensconced herself inside the high wire nursery fender, and one saw her in the uncomfortable way in which when we were bairns you may remember we used to see the fire, never getting at it enough. I was sorry she gave up poor Grosvenor Place. I like all those old Grosvenors; I could have cried when I looked at No. 30! _Du reste_, I rather like getting old; there is wonderful repose in it; it saves one so much trouble--so much of the work done. I am so glad you are getting fat, so am I, and I combine also the grey hair which you mention George has assumed. I am very grey; fat and grey sounds like an old cat, but what does it signify? when once we meet, how young we shall feel then. Emmy, do you remember your aversion to mittens? My dear, I was in advance of my age. When I wore them, like Bacon and Galileo I appealed to posterity, and posterity made haste, and everybody wears mittens, morning, noon, and night. The only chance you have is, that they will have burnt out before you come back, and my hair too. Everybody _lisse_ and banded, and they little know that George and I were the only two people that wore close heads in our day. [Illustration: Omery Galber Eleanor, Countess of Buckinghamshire.] The Lansdownes spent a week here. She is looking well, and in much better spirits, and her countenance so much softer and gentler, that I think her more loveable than I ever knew. I never knew how much I loved her till I was with her in her grief.[493] Louisa[494] looking well for her, and ready to talk and be pleased. Lord Lansdowne rather older. I was wondering what made him look so well and distinguished and conversable, and I found he was set off by Lord Charlemont, who rejoices in a brown natural hair wig, which made Lord Lansdowne in his nice grey hair look quite beautiful. I have got a nice two-year-old[495] baby just _pour me désennuyer_; such a nice duck! The youngest after six girls. Pam says he is doomed to wear all the old bent bonnets out, and accordingly I found him in the hay with a bonnet on. _Tuesday, September 20, 1840._