lengthened and dangerous passage of eight months, and almost perpetual
sea-sickness, in which my poor dear sister Emma went to Bengal, to become
the wife of the best of husbands and the mother of the dearest of little
boys, and to enjoy these inestimable blessings for so brief an interval!
She has quitted this wicked and wretched world for one where all is
peace. The misery and ill-treatment which she endured from Captain Case
her first odious husband, were, I am sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel,
by your subsequent affection. If the most sumptuous dresses which London,
even Paris, could supply, jewellery the most costly, and elegant lace,
and everything lovely and fashionable, could content a woman, these, I am
sure, during the last four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what
avail are they when this scene of vanity is closed?

"Mr. Sneid announces that the passage was most favourable. They stayed a
week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, where they visited
Bonaparte's tomb (another instance of the vanity of all things!), and
their voyage was enlivened off Ascension by the taking of some delicious
turtle!

"You may be sure that the most liberal sum which you have placed to my
credit with the Messrs. Hobson and Co. shall be faithfully expended on my
dear little charge. Mrs. Newcome can scarcely be called his grandmamma, I
suppose; and I daresay her Methodistical ladyship will not care to see
the daughter and grandson of a clergyman of the Church of England! My
brother Charles took leave to wait upon her when he presented your last
most generous bill at the bank. She received him most rudely, and said a
fool and his money are soon parted; and when Charles said, 'Madam, I am
the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcome,' 'Sir,' says she, 'I judge
nobody; but from all accounts, you are the brother of a very vain, idle,
thoughtless, extravagant woman; and Thomas Newcome was as foolish about