I am intensely enjoying this bit here.  Yesterday the Jelfs and the boys and I had a long wander by the canal where the larches and the birches are getting their tenderest tints on....  On Thursday evening I went to the Tin Church, with the old bell tankling as I went in, and the mess bugles tootling afar as I came out.  Bell the schoolmaster and baritone started as if I were a ghost, and sent me a book for the special hymn.  Not a soul in the officers’ seats—­but a good choir and a very fair congregation of men and barrack families.  Said I to myself, “I’ve been living in wealthy Bowdon and in ecclesiastical York, and not had this.  Well done—­the Tug of War and the Tin Tabernacle and the Camp! and unpaid soldiers and their sons to sing the Lord’s Song in the land of their pilgrimage!”

To-day I went with Mrs. Jelf to a meeting at the Club House about “Coffee Houses.”  When we got in a “rehearsal” (dramatic) was going on, and the chaff was “Have you come for the rehearsal or the coffee-house?” We “Coffee-housers” adjourned to the Whist Room.  Sir Thos.  Steele in the chair.  I had a long chat with him.  He says Music and the Drama have declined dreadfully.  The meeting was full of friends.  “Mat Irvine” nearly wrung my hand off, and I sat by poor Knollys, who is heart-broken at the death of that dear little soul, Captain Barton.  It was a first-rate meeting, mixed military and Aldershot tradesmen—­a very “nice feeling” displayed—­altogether it was wonderfully pleasant.

Exeter. May 16, 1879.

...  The weather alternates here between North-Easters and mugginess, and I have never slept without fires yet.  All the same I have had some lovely drives, which you know are so good for me.  When Mrs. Fox Strangways couldn’t go the Colonel has taken me alone 12 or 14 miles in the dog-cart with a very “free-going” but otherwise prettily-behaved little mare named Daphne.  The tumbledown of hills and dales is very pretty here, and the deep red of the earth, and the whitewashed and thatched cottages.  Very pretty bits for sketching if it had been sketching-weather....

I hope to get several things done in London.  Jean Ingelow has burst out rather about my writings, and wants me to do something “in the style of Madam Liberality,” and let her try to get it into Good Words, as she thinks I ought to try for a wider audience.  I shall certainly go and see her, and talk over matters....  I was very much pleased Sir Anthony Home had been so much pleased with “Jan.”  To draw tears from a V.C. and a fine old Scotch medico is very gratifying!  Capt.  Patten said their own Dr. Craig had also been delighted with it.  When “We and the World” is done I mean to rest well on my oars, and then try and aim at something to give me a better footing if I can....

June 14, 1879.

...  I am getting as devoted to Browning as you.  It is very funny—­this sudden and simultaneous light on him!