MY DEAREST THERESA, I can write to no one in all the nervous flurry of these first meetings but yourself, my poor afflicted friend. Amongst all the happiness of others your hard trial[512] haunts me, and shocked me more, much more than I can say, when I heard it at Southampton. I had dwelt so much on seeing you, as I was told you were unaltered, and then to hear of this! I will not write more now, but even the first moments of arrival cannot pass away without my telling you how heartily I feel for you and love you. We are all well. Your most affectionate E. EDEN. _Miss Eden to Lady Francis Egerton._ MONTAGU HALL, _Tuesday [1846]._ MY DEAREST LADY F., I have been meaning to write to you constantly, but once caught again in the trammels of civilised life the thing was impossible. We spent a great deal of time (very pleasantly, so there is nothing to repent of) at Penrhyn Castle. We went there for two days last Thursday week, and somehow stayed on till yesterday. Every time we talked of pursuing our Welsh researches, Colonel Pennant[513] declared that that particular sight was one of the drives from the Castle, and there came round a jaunting-car with four great black horses, and we went off to Conway. There was no end to the sights, besides the Castle itself, which I think one of the finest things I ever saw. The arches over the staircase looked just like so much guipure lace carved in stone. Every table and cabinet is carved either in slate, marble, or oak, till it is a curiosity of itself. I slept in the State room, an enclosed field of blue damask and carved oak. The bed, which I should imagine did not cover more than an acre and a half, is said to have cost _£_1500. I never had an opportunity of judging whether there was work enough for the money, having slept generally near the edge. Old Mr. Pennant spent _£_28,000 a year for twelve years in building this Castle, and died just as it was finished. Everything from the Keep to the inkstand on the table was made by his own Welsh people; and I never saw a more wealthy-looking peasantry, and I suppose he spent his money well according to Miss Martineau’s principles of doing good; that of getting as much work done for one’s self as one’s money will pay for. I daresay that is all right, but it always sounds like a suspicious system, and against all the early ideas of self-denial and alms-giving that were so carefully dinned into one; but the result in the instance of Penrhyn Castle has been highly satisfactory, and I do not really mean that he did not do a great deal of good besides. There never was a more charitable man.