Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/217

 ing. I wonder when you will get some change and refreshment. ... I am grieved that Mama refused to go to Cromer ; I am really anxious about her getting away somehow this summer ; she seems to me to be living too monotonous a life ; so if you see anything she would like to do, pray encourage it, regardless of expense, and write and tell me about it at once. I don't consider it an open question whether, if it is in our power, we should send her anywhere she fancies going. And will you remember that often the only way to do this is to enter heart and soul into some pleasure with her? Written from Derwent Bank (undated, 1861). .

.... How well I remember coming suddenly in upon you that last dreadful night, and finding you hard at work on my skirt (which, by the way, has met with unqualified admiration, darling), and how good you were in never opposing my coming. Well, I've had such a summer as I never shall forget. The unbroken peace of it, like one long unclouded day ! The merry home life, and exquisite redundance of the perpetual beauty. If I raise my eyes I see the mountains, perhaps crowned and veiled in lighted cloud ; if I walk round the garden, the long sprays of rose, or delicate green ferns, delight me ; if, in the night, or rather early dawn, I come into this room which adjoins mine, I see the moonlight lying over the river, field and hills, or the long cold level lake of mist lying in the valley, breaking under the first ray of the sun, and rising in wreathed pillars, covering the lowest end of the village of Broughton, as it rises, but never, I under-