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 high and low, will have been pleased. I hear them knocking away all round the house, putting up platforms. I often think, like King Lear about the troop of horse, ‘that it were a delicate stratagem now to shoe hammers with felt.’ I know it is not Captain ’s fault that his workmen cannot knock up benches without making a noise, but still I felt quite cross with him to-day when he came to my room to ask for these verandahs to be given up to him; and I think he could not have contemplated how very hard they would knock. Perhaps it will spite him if I take myself over to the north side of the house, so here I go.

Thursday, 28th. Fanny went up to Barrackpore by the steamer, which went early this morning, and George and I are going by land to-night. It. has been a day of morning visits, which is unusual. After luncheon, when I generally subside into a short slumber, and, indeed, when the whole of Calcutta does the same, Captain came to say a clergyman wished to come upstairs and see me. Out of respect for the Church I said yes, though I was very sleepy,