Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/85

 began. We fired a gun, and burnt blue lights ; an hour after, the man at the masthead saw the light vessel; at two in the morning the pilot came onboard. This morning we saw land, and now the steamers are in sight, not only coming to tow us up to Calcutta, but bringing the ‘Zenobia,’ which is to take our letters to England; and also, best of all, bringing us heaps of letters, which the pilot says are waiting for us, some of as late a date as November 11. Only conceive the delight of it—it brings such hot tears into my eyes!—we shall have news of you all five weeks after we left you, and that is about twenty-one weeks ago. We are all well, and all writing like mad people. The pilot says we had been given up for lost at Calcutta; the steamers have been looking for us for three weeks. John Elliot waited some time to see us, but gave it up, and has gone home.

God bless you and yours, ! and only keep writing. Tell me quantities of stories about all the children, who will otherwise grow up, and I shall know nothing about them. Yours most affectionately, E. E.