Woodbridge: Tuesday:
[End of May, 1881.]

My dear Mrs. Kemble:

I must write you a word of ‘God Speed’ before you go: before even you go to London to prepare for going: for, if I wait till then, you will be all bother with preparations, and leave-takings; and nevertheless feel yourself bound to answer. Pray do not, even if (as I suppose) still at Leamington; for you will still have plenty to think about with Daughter and Children. I do not propose to go to London to shake hands before you go off: for, as I say, you will have enough of that without me—and my blue Spectacles, which I can only discard as yet when looking on the Grass and young Leaves.

I duly sent your Book to Henry Kemble, as you desired: and received a very polite Note from him in acknowledgment.

And now my house is being pulled about my Ears by preparations for my Nieces next week. And, instead of my leaving the coast clear to Broom and Dust-pan, I believe that Charles Keene will be here from Friday to Monday. As he has long talked of coming, I do not like to put him off now he has really proposed to come, and we shall scramble on somehow. And I will get a Carriage and take him a long Drive into the Country where it is greenest. He is a very good fellow, and has lately lost his Mother, to whom he was a very pious Son; a man who can reverence, although a Droll in Punch.

You will believe that I wish you all well among your Mountains. George Crabbe has been (for Health’s sake) in Italy these last two months, and wrote me his last Note from the Lago Maggiore. My Sister Jane Wilkinson talks of coming over to England this Summer: but I think her courage will fail her when the time comes. If ever you should go to, or near, Florence, she would be sincerely glad to see you, and to talk over other Days. She is not at all obtrusively religious: and I think must have settled abroad to escape some of the old Associations in which she took so much part, to but little advantage to herself or others.

You know that I cannot write to you when you are abroad unless you tell me whither I am to direct. And you probably will not do that: but I do not, and shall [not] cease to be yours always and truly

E. F.G.