He was very anxious Lena should try and tame them, so she began by collecting the débris of her navvies, and sitting down with them under the old tree (which they have killed of course), and some of the bricklayers gathered round and began to laugh, so she told them very quietly that they need not come out of their shed to listen to her if they did not like it, but that if they came out she could not allow any laughing at such a serious subject. And they took it very well and said they did not mean to jeer, and that if she would come to their shed, they would listen if they might smoke; and the navvies in their gentleman-like way advised her to go, and said they would go with her, and they made a path with planks and put up a sort of seat, and showed the bricklayers how the little lady, as they call her, was to be treated. And it all went well. She read them a tract called Slab Castle, which always touches them, and when she came to the chapter on the Bible, half of the bricklayers were in tears, particularly the ones who had laughed, and they conveyed her to the gate, begging she would come again, and clamorous for copies of Slab Castle--which I advise her to decline giving for the present. But they have been extremely civil and attentive since, and she has certainly heard such satisfactory accounts of her old congregation, that it is an encouragement to go on. My love to Lady or Lord E., and believe me ever, dearest, your affectionate E. EDEN. I hope Alice will not insist on my liking Miss Yonge’s new book.[584] It is more unintelligible than “The Daisy Chain,” though not quite so tiresome. But she brings in too many people. There are four generations of one family, and her moral is quite beyond me. Those that are well brought up turn out wicked, and the worldly family produce a crop of saints. I am proud to say I am quite incapable of construing the slang she makes her ladies talk. _Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._ EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE, _Monday_, _December_ [1863]. MY DEAREST THERESA, It is obvious that I must write and wish you and yours a happy New Year, and a great many of them, and one happier than the other; but barring that I do not see that I have anything else to say. London is so utterly empty during Christmas week, everybody thinking it right to go to somebody else’s house, and it is always the most solitary week of the year to me. But I feel so comfortable in the thought that I am not passing it in bed as I have for the twelve preceding years, that it seems to me a singularly merry Christmas. I suppose you are all rehearsing and acting. Lady Derby writes word that she hears Alice[585] is well enough now to think of acting on the 11th, so I hope she has made great progress in health since she got home. Lady Derby gives rather a poor account of him; he gains strength so slowly, but she says that after being confined to his own room for three months, he was now able to get about the house at times....