Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/215

 o'clock that morning that we were to move; so you may think what a bustle we were in. . . . Ockey is immensely busy, and quite in her element, buying things, and reading over schedules of fixtures, and examining the plans, and carpentering. We have not yet fixed what rooms we are to keep; it must depend on the lodgers. . . . We are close to the park; so the air is very good; and we are about ten minutes' walk from Queen's College. The back of the house is delightfully quiet, because it looks out on Marylebone church and schools. The rooks in your favourite tree are so near that we often hear them cawing.

. . . Ockey came from Brighton yesterday. On Monday evening she proposes to start for Cumberland. She has to go up to town to-morrow, for Ruskin is going to attend to her work. She is much better than last week; and I never knew her sweeter. I can hardly bear her to leave the room, I have seen so little of her for so long, and I feel she is so soon going away.

You need not be anxious about the house, everyone calculates to lose the first quarter. Ockey has all the money put aside for her first quarter's rent, in case we should not let. . ..

Is it not delightful that Ockey is so happy with Miss Harris ? She seems not able to express half her joy; her letters are full of such expressions as "Oh, I am so happy!" "Oh, it is so delicious!"—and she thinks she shall go back there again and again.