‘We are not so quiet here as I should have thought we should be. All the people round ask us out. Just before Mr. Bolton’s death, Jerome and I dined at Mrs. Latheby’s. Nita, of course, was invited too, but she will not go out at present, and she would not let us stay at home. So we went. There was Mrs. Latheby, and her niece, Miss Paulina Bagot–a Roman Catholic heiress, who is intended to marry young Latheby. He was there too, with Father Somerville, who had come with him from Brentwood, Jerome and myself. We were the only heretics. Jerome sang, and I played, and young Mr. Latheby applauded wildly. Then Miss Bagot played, which she does exceedingly well. Mr. Somerville, as usual, made himself _very_ agreeable. He really is one of the most delightful people I ever knew. I know you don’t like him, but I call him charming. Both he and Mrs. Latheby are very polite to us. Mr. Somerville comes a great deal to the Abbey. ‘Nita is like you–she dislikes him. At first when he came she used to sit with him and Jerome, and so did I; but she felt so uncomfortable, she said, that now we always leave them in the library, and we go and sit in the drawing-room. Very often Mr. Leyburn is there too, for he does not like Father Somerville either, and has not the good manners even to pretend to do so, which annoys me very much. Sometimes Mr. Bolton used to come, and then I used to read to him about the savage tribes of South America. We were reading the “Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World,” which Mr. Leyburn brought for us, about the only thing in which his taste is unimpeachable. Of course he listened with respect to that, but all the other books he calls “travellers’ tales.” He professes to go in for natural history himself, or to be, as he calls it, “a bit of a naturalist,” and he was always interrupting our reading, finding fault with the botany, or the zoology, or the something ology of the writers, which is a most exasperating habit. It is so annoying, just as you are reading a thrilling account of something, to be suddenly interrupted, “Incorrect! Where did the fellow get his facts? Not from accurate personal observation, I’ll wager.” ‘Miss Shuttleworth is just as amusing as ever, but I don’t think she has done any thing _very_ remarkable since I last wrote. ‘Jerome still goes to business every day, though I know Nita wants him to give it up. I wonder that Nita never reproaches him! But then he looks almost as miserable as she does. It is a depressing household, dear Sara, though I have nothing to complain of. They let me do anything I like, and I believe I might even come and see you if I chose. But I have learnt a great many things from the troubles I have seen since I came here, and amongst others I have learnt that I am of some comfort to Nita, therefore I will not leave her. ‘I must conclude. You will be tired of all this. Do not be long in writing to me, if it is only two sides of a sheet of paper.