happiest recollections is of the number of mothers whom I influenced in the healthy education of their children.
Letters written home at this date indicate the vivid interests of the time.
November 1850.
Dear E.,—The great topics of the day here are the Great Industrial Exhibition and Popery.
On November 5 the bells were ringing and the boys hurrahing for 'Gunpowder Plot Day.' This anniversary was celebrated with more enthusiasm than usual from the Pope's having appointed a Cardinal Archbishop of England, and 'No Popery' placards are posted everywhere.
The great building of iron and glass for the Exhibition is rapidly rising in Hyde Park, and the papers in this rank-loving country duly inform us whenever Prince Albert comes in from Windsor to inspect its progress, and furthermore that the Prince is modelling a group of statuary, and the Queen designing a carpet, to figure in the display. The last time I was at the Twamleys' we drove round to see the building, which is a curious sight from the delicate appearance of the immense quantity of iron framework; it looks too fragile to support a crowd, and yet it will hold myriads. There is a splendid old elm tree which they have enclosed in the building, and his great black arms look in strange contrast to the surrounding tracery.
December 24, 1850.
Dear M.,—I was just stretching myself after breakfast, and thinking that I must put on my boots and turn out into the horrible fog that was darkening daylight, when your welcome letters came, and it being holiday time I treated myself to an immediate perusal. I must
