societies in Ledbury, which he was so much pledged to support, and so
interested in supporting. If you knew how much he has talked of you,
and asked every particular about you, you could not fancy that his
regard for you was estranged. He has an extraordinary degree of
strength of mind on most points--and strong feeling, when it is not
allowed to run in the natural channel, will sometimes force its way
where it is not expected. You will think it strange; but never up to
this moment has he even alluded to the subject, before _us_--never, at
the moment of parting with us. And yet, though he had not power to say
_one word_, he could play at cricket with the boys on the very last
evening.

We slept at the York House in Bath. Bath is a beautiful town _as
a town_, and the country harmonises well with it, without being a
beautiful country. As _mere country_, nobody would stand still to look
at it; though as town country, many bodies would. Somersetshire in
general seems to be hideous, and I could fancy from the walls which
intersect it in every direction, that they had been turned to stone
by looking at the _Gorgonic_ scenery. The part of Devonshire through
which our journey lay is nothing _very_ pretty, though it must be
allowed to be beautiful after Somersetshire. We arrived here almost
in the dark, and were besieged by the crowd of disinterested
tradespeople, who _would_ attend us through the town to our house, to
help to unload the carriages. This was not a particularly agreeable
reception in spite of its cordiality; and the circumstance of there
being not a human being in our house, and not even a rushlight
burning, did not reassure us. People were tired of expecting us every
day for three weeks. Nearly the whole way from Honiton to this place
is a descent. Poor dear Bummy said she thought we were going into
the _bowels of the earth_, but suspect she thought we were going