Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/196

 good work for "Modern Painters," one he had meant to do himself but for which he will not now have time a bit of the fir boughs in Turner's "Crossing the Brook," now at South Kensington.

I told him about you, about my visit, about your work among the men how lovely I thought it, and how fresh. He was very much pleased, and told me about the daughter of a friend of his, who does much the same to whom it seems he has sent several of my drawings for her men to use.

We got at last upon the subject of the education of working women ; and he asked much about it, seemed greatly interested. I told him many anecdotes, and something of what I said in my article on the subject. He was much interested about the question of fiction. He hopes to publish the fifth volume in the spring. I was with him an hour and a quarter. When I came away he said, "We'd quite a nice chat" ; he "wasn't so horridly busy as usual." January 8th, 1860. . In a description of a gathering at the Working Men's College she says : "I was much interested in an earnest young countryman of the name of Cooke, who had presented a collection of butterflies and moths, etc., to the College. As every scrap of natural history is eagerly learnt by me, to be repeated wherever I go, and lovingly remembered, I got him to tell me some of their names and habits. . ..

"I was delighted to hear Mr. Dickinson (whose portrait of Mr. Maurice you may remember) praising Mr. Ward's drawings. . . It was very nice to see old faces back again and to feel as if I never should have done