WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS
tion, they in part belong to you all, for I love you all most tenderly."
A house had been found at Farnborough Hill, and at the end of the month the family settled there. But unhappily it was not to be for long. At the end of January 1802 the little Flavia was taken ill with scarlet fever. Her mother insisted on nursing her herself, and took the infection. The child died on 1st February, and Mrs. Floyd, who was only thirty years of age, on 3rd February. They were buried at Farnborough, and there is a tablet to their memory in the church. The three remaining children were now taken care of by their aunt, Miss Elizabeth Floyd, who lived at Chalk Farm, near Bromley, Kent. Their father, when away from them on duty, continued to exhort the children to attend to their studies, counselled them to take great pains with their writing, for "you will find it becomes fully as easy to write well as to scrawl so that nobody can read what you say," and promised if they made good progress to take them to Sidmouth for a reward. Besides the writing of a clear hand[1] he laid much
- ↑ But his fatherly affection leads him to say, in regard to writing to him, "Write bad rather than not write at all."
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