As you
say, it _looks_ like getting on at any rate.
'I have got up my courage so far as to ask Mrs. White to grant me a
day's holiday to go to Birstall to see Ellen Nussey, who has offered
to send a gig for me. My request was granted, but so coldly and
slowly. However, I stuck to my point in a very exemplary and
remarkable manner. I hope to go next Saturday. Matters are
progressing very strangely at Gomersall. Mary Taylor and Waring have
come to a singular determination, but I almost think under the
peculiar circumstances a defensible one, though it sounds
outrageously odd at first. They are going to emigrate--to quit the
country altogether. Their destination unless they change is Port
Nicholson, in the northern island of New Zealand!!! Mary has made up
her mind she can not and will not be a governess, a teacher, a
milliner, a bonnet-maker nor housemaid. She sees no means of
obtaining employment she would like in England, so she is leaving it.
I counselled her to go to France likewise and stay there a year
before she decided on this strange unlikely-sounding plan of going to
New Zealand, but she is quite resolved. I cannot sufficiently
comprehend what her views and those of her brothers may be on the
subject, or what is the extent of their information regarding Port
Nicholson, to say whether this is rational enterprise or absolute
madness.
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