Her nerves were not able to bear much strain nor the fatigue of journeys—we read of great surges of pain when she tries to write, of sleepless nights and weakness. Hospitable as she was by nature and by a sense of duty also, the entertaining of guests was very tiring at times. We hear of many visitors, familiar names—Lushingtons, Frank Palgrave, Simeons, Edward Lear (who called his house at San Remo Villa Emily after the most ideal woman he had ever known), Woolner the sculptor, who stays for some time, and we read of the portraits he was taking of his hosts. ‘Alfred is charmed with the medallion of me and I think myself, if such a picture can be made of my worn face, that, if Lady Somers and the Queens and Princesses of Pattledom were successfully done, it would set the fashion.’ She goes on to say: ‘Words fail Mr. Woolner, all eloquent as he is, when he speaks of the Pattle sisters, especially of beautiful Mrs. Jackson and her three beautiful daughters.’ Among her guests Mrs. Tennyson specially enjoyed Jowett’s visits. She says: ‘He stays this week on condition of being allowed solitary mornings for work. You know this suits me well who also have work, not a little, to do. In the evening Alfred or he read aloud, and we are very happy.’ One year there is a mention of a very important personage departing _from_ Farringford to London—‘“Tithonus,” the companion poem of “Ulysses,” going to-day to Thackeray for the _Cornhill_.’ There had been a plan for buying a house at Freshwater for the Camerons, and the Tennysons are helping in the negotiation for securing the land before Mr. Cameron’s return. Lawyers, business agents, purchases, furnishings take up much of the correspondence. Some people look upon business as a bore, Mrs. Cameron took it as the battle of life. ‘The garden is being laid out,’ Mrs. Tennyson writes; ‘Merwood proposes that you should have a hedge of black bay and copper beach which his wise man Pike tells him make an evergreen hedge almost impenetrable, but it is too hard a frost for planting. The ice is so thick that Hallam announces an iceberg.’ Then Mrs. Cameron writes: ‘C. is indeed well pleased to hear that all seems to prosper at Freshwater Bay for us. Yes, how dear it will be for our children to grow and live happy together playing mad pranks along the healthy lea.’ Then she continues: ‘Two days ago, in one of those rare bright days which sometimes make autumn delicious, Henry Taylor walked about his own garden for an hour with Lord John Russell discoursing politics, and suffered in no way.’ It is a pretty account of Mrs. Cameron going to meet the postman through the pouring rain to get news of her husband: ‘It was as if heaven’s blessing descended on me when I read of his well-being.’ She adds: