My mother writes, "Our Twelfth Cake was a superb
little illuminated Book of Ruth, which never can be eaten up, and will
be a joy forever to all our posterity after us, and to our
contemporaries."
I will insert here an account of how perfect the smoothness of English
mechanism may be:--
13 CHARLES STREET, BATH.
MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--We asked the porter at the depot to tell us of a
good hotel, and he sent us to York House. After being deposited in it,
with our stones round our necks (as I call our luggage), we found it
was not only the first hotel in Bath, but one famous throughout the
land. A terrible fear came over me that a year's income would scarcely
defray our expenses even for one day and night; but as we did not
arrive till five, we could not leave till the next day. So we had
nothing to do but to take it grandly. We were put in possession of a
lordly sitting-room, hung with crimson. There was nothing gaudy, but a
solid richness. Papa and Mamma were the Duke and Duchess of Maine [in
remembrance of a lordly claim at Raymond], Julian was Lord Waldo, and
Una, Lady Raymond. The finest cut crystal, and knives and forks with
solid silver handles, and spoons too heavy to lift easily, delicate
rose and gold china, and an entire service of silver dishes, came upon
the table. Our attendants were the Sublime and the Pensive, in the
form of two men. The Sublime had a bosom full of linen lilies in
peculiarly wide bloom; while the Pensive was adorned rather with
snowdrops.
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