but that was, in my view of things, out of the question; so we did the best we could,—­my own maid, who is a perfect Sister of Charity in all cases of illness, sitting up with him for seven nights following, for one or two were requisite during the delirium, and we could not get a nurse for love or money, and when he became better, then, as we had dreaded, our poor little boy was struck down.  However, it has pleased God to spare him, and, after a long struggle, he is safe from the disorder and almost restored to his former health.  But we are still under a sort of quarantine, for, although people pretend to believe in vaccination, they avoid the house as if the plague were in it, and stop their carriages at the end of the village and send inquiries and cards, and in my mind they are right.  To say nothing of Reading, there have been above thirty severe cases, after vaccination, in our immediate neighborhood, five of them fatal.  I had been inoculated after the old style, my maid had had the small-pox the natural way and the only one who escaped was a young girl who had been vaccinated three times, the last two years ago.  Forgive this long story; it was necessary to excuse my most unthankful silence, and may serve as an illustration of the way a disease, supposed to be all but exterminated, is making head again in England.

Thank you a thousand and a thousand times for your most delightful books.  Mr. Whipple’s Lectures are magnificent, and your own Boston Book could not, I think, be beaten by a London Book, certainly not approached by the collected works of any other British city,—­Edinburgh, for example.

Mr. Bennett is most grateful for your kindness, and Mrs. Browning will be no less enchanted at the honor done her husband.  It is most creditable to America that they think more of our thoughtful poets than the English do themselves.

Two female friends of mine—­Mrs. Acton Tindal, a young beauty as well as a woman of genius, and a Miss Julia Day, whom I have never seen, but whose verses show extraordinary purity of thought, feeling, and expression—­have been putting forth books.  Julia Day’s second series she has done me the honor to inscribe to me, notwithstanding which I venture to say how very much I admire it, and so I think would you.  Henry Chorley is going to be a happy man.  All his life long he has been dying to have a play acted, and now he has one coming out at the Surrey Theatre, over Blackfriars Bridge.  He lives much among fine people, and likes the notion of a Faubourg audience.  Perhaps he is right.  I am not at all afraid of the play, which is very beautiful,—­a blank-verse comedy full of truth and feeling.  I don’t know if you know Henry Chorley.  He is the friend of Robert Browning, and the especial favorite of John Kenyon, and has always been a sort of adopted nephew of mine.  Poor Mrs. Hemans loved him well; so did a very different person, Lady Blessington,—­so that altogether