Visits to native ladies are much more amusing when I go with Rosina, than when there is a stiff secretary translating from the other side of the punkah. The Begum was delighted with some English flowers that I took her, and began asking Rosina about England, and amongst other things, she and her attendants having ascertained that it was really true that we walked out in London, wanted very much to know if we did not wear veils and loose trousers on those occasions. Rosina made them all laugh very much, and the Begum gave her £5 when we went away. I should think a laugh must be cheap at the money. I am quite sure I should have gone wrong, particularly wrong, if I had been one of these shut-up ladies, out of mere spite. It might have been difficult to contrive it, but I think I should have been a very profligate Begum. They say this little lady was. Now she is not more than twenty-six, and having lost her husband has lost her power, and is under the control of a strict mother-in-law, and her chief occupation is to _cook_ for her son. She never lets anybody else cook for him for fear he should be poisoned. CALCUTTA, _February 9, 1841_. No more decisive news from China. Charles Elliot still goes on negotiating--or as the people there call it, _no_-gotiating. The navy, army, and merchants are all equally dissatisfied. By the last letter, he declared Sir Gordon Bremer[502] was to attack the Bogue forts the next day if the Chinese did not sign the treaty, but he has said so so often that nobody will believe it till they see it, and even when they do it is impossible not to regret that it was not done a year ago. Mrs. Elliot has rather a hard time of it, I fancy, as the society here is chiefly mercantile, and they all consider themselves ruined by all this weakness and procrastination, and the papers, too, are full of abuse. She bears it better than most people would, but fidgets about his vacillation, I suspect. She talks of sailing in about ten days.... This day twelve month how sea-sick I hope to be. Yr. most aff. E. E. _Miss Eden to the Countess of Buckinghamshire._ CALCUTTA, _April 6, 1841_. MY DEAREST SISTER, I did not write to you last month. I daresay you never found it out, only I am so honest I tell. But I had a large arrear of friends to bring up, and as Fanny said she had written you a double letter, I thought you would not miss me if “I just stepped out for a bit.”