In order to evince my
gratitude, as well as to please my own inclination, I sit down to
answer it immediately. I am glad, in the first place, to hear that
your brother is going to be married, and still more so to learn that
his wife-elect has a handsome fortune--not that I advocate marrying
for money in general, but I think in many cases (and this is one)
money is a very desirable contingent of matrimony.
'I wonder when Mary Taylor is expected in England. I trust you will
be at home while she is at Hunsworth, and that you, she, and I, may
meet again somewhere under the canopy of heaven. I cannot, dear
Ellen, make any promise about myself and Anne going to Brookroyd at
Christmas; her vacations are so short she would grudge spending any
part of them from home.
'The catastrophe, which you related so calmly, about your book-muslin
dress, lace bertha, etc., convulsed me with cold shudderings of
horror. You have reason to curse the day when so fatal a present was
offered you as that infamous little "varmint." The perfect serenity
with which you endured the disaster proves most fully to me that you
would make the best wife, mother, and mistress in the world. You and
Anne are a pair for marvellous philosophical powers of endurance; no
spoilt dinners, scorched linen, dirtied carpets, torn sofa-covers,
squealing brats, cross husbands, would ever discompose either of you.
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