Our Tunbridge speculation is answering so well to us. I always knew I should like it, but George’s content, indeed actual enjoyment of the place and way of life, surprises me. We have such a clean house, just finished, and we are its first inhabitants, so we run no hazard of being devoured by a flea hacknied in the arts of devouring and tormenting. I was just going to bother myself by inventing a description of our way of life, when George showed me his answer to a vain-glorious description of the joys of Worthing, which Mr. Wall, who is living there, has just sent, meaning to put us out of conceit with Tunbridge by the vulgar notion of the Agar-Ellis’[214] man-cook and carriage and four, and so I shall copy part of George’s answer. It opens with a moral: “We are better off and happier than is properly compatible with a life of innocence and vegetation. Our house is delightfully clean and comfortable. The living very good. Fish caught at eight in the morning at Hastings is devoured here at three. The eggs, cream, and butter, are brought to us in an hourly succession of freshness. All the material of the kitchen excellent, and the appetite too pure to think that it is a female that cooks it. Then a few glasses of hock and some coffee, and an hour’s repose, and we meet at Lady C. Greville’s,[215] Alvanley[216] and his sisters, and the F. Levesons.[217] We assort ourselves upon horses, into barouches, etc., and start for some of our inexhaustible lions; and we end our evening together with the feast of nonsense and the flow of tea.” He ends his letter with a promise to be at Norman Court the 1st of September, and adds, “My guns are at home and the locks click sweetly. Water the turnips when it does not rain.” How much more foolish men are than women, particularly about their amusements. We none of us write to each other about our white sattin gowns that are hanging sweetly up at home. George does not mention what is I think the most curious part of our life--that I am actually dressed and down at the Wells every morning before half-past eight, and he generally arrives only five minutes later. We dine at three and go to bed at eleven, and are in a ravenous state of hunger at all hours; and the consequence is that I can already walk three or four miles without being tired. The Duchess of Kent arrived two days ago, and we live in a transport of loyalty. We insisted on illuminating for her and dragging her into the town, which naturally alarmed her, so she put off coming, meaning to step in unobserved. But that our loyalty could not suffer; and I never stepped out without 50 yards of rope in one pocket, and a Roman candle in the other, for fear of accidents. However, I believe she was allowed to drive up to her own door, but there were some fine illuminations afterwards.