shadow creeping up till it veiled even the snow-covered peaks themselves. Tell dear A. I am not, and never have been, disappointed with anything, except a little perhaps with having to work, after all; but this is very unreasonable. I have no anxiety, and possibly I am after all better for a little compulsory action; or I might go to sleep altogether, or take to thinking too much. As to the country, it might grow upon me; but it hardly seems to me as if it could, it is so supremely perfectly beautiful. I have not even missed my beloved grass; for first it would not fit in with the rest; and second there seems to me to be a kind of uncultivation or perhaps rather of mountain character given to the landscape by its absence which has a peculiar charm. I daresay this is an unreasonable fancy, based on my northern associations of grass with richness of soil; but it is involuntary and to me specially delightful, partly as being different, and so not touching me too much, partly as giving a sense of freedom and air for which I pant. Then it is quite delicious to an eye that glories so in colour, to see the great masses of earth, ready to turn to gold or purple or red, or all these in infinite combinations with brown, and over all the silver network of the weird olive trees. I fancy I should rather miss the grass increasingly than decreasingly.…
Remember me affectionately to Mrs. P.[1]; dear, good, bright little George! to think I shall not see him again,, and that he is to do no more service here below; all young lives that go out so, hint so distinctly of the life that is to be I do think of you all so. Has anyone
- ↑ One of the first tenants. Her only boy died in hospital. She was a widow who went very early to work. Octavia and her sisters went every morning for some weeks to get the children ready for school, until they had learnt to do it themselves.
