LETTER VI.

MY DEAR SISTER:—­

You may spare your anxieties about me, for I do assure you, that if I were an old Sevres China jar, I could not have more careful handling than I do.  Every body is considerate; a great deal to say, when there appears to be so much excitement.  Every body seems to understand how good for nothing I am; and yet, with all this consideration, I have been obliged to keep my room and bed for a good part of the time.  One agreeable feature of the matter is, it gave me an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the celebrated homoeopathic physician, Dr. Henderson, in whose experiments and experience I had taken some interest while in America.

Of the multitudes who have called, I have seen scarcely any.

Mrs. W., with whom I am staying, is a most thoughtful nurse.  They are Friends, and nothing can be more a pattern of rational home enjoyment, without ostentation and without parade, than a Quaker family.

Though they reject every thing in arrangement which savors of ostentation and worldly show, yet their homes are exquisite in point of comfort.  They make great use of flowers and natural specimens in adorning their apartments, and also indulge to a chaste and moderate extent in engravings and works of art.  So far as I have observed, they are all “tee-totalers;” giving, in this respect, the whole benefit of their example to the temperance cause.

To-morrow evening is to be the great tea party here.  How in the world I am ever to live through it, I don’t know.

The amount of letters we found waiting for us here in Edinburgh was, if possible, more appalling than in Glasgow.  Among those from persons whom you would be interested in hearing of, I may mention, a very kind and beautiful one from the Duchess of Sutherland, and one also from the Earl of Carlisle, both desiring to make appointments for meeting us as soon as we come to London.  Also a very kind and interesting note from the Rev. Mr. Kingsley and lady.  I look forward with a great deal of interest to passing a little time with them in their rectory.  Letters also from Mr. Binney and Mr. Sherman, two of the leading Congregational clergymen of London.  The latter officiates at Surrey Chapel, which was established by Rowland Hill.  Both contain invitations to us to visit them in London.

As to all engagements, I am in a state of happy acquiescence, having resigned myself, as a very tame lion, into the hands of my keepers.  Whenever the time comes for me to do any thing, I try to behave as well as I can, which, as Dr. Young says, is all that an angel could do in the same circumstances.