Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/246

 LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL CHAP. The Crag, Maenporth, July 29th, 1866. FLORENCE TO EMILY. There are great signs of cholera coming to London. I have been administering Battey right and left with great efficiency. I was very sorry to leave at such a time, for one really was of use. I compiled a beautiful thing for Ruth, with Gertrude, from the cholera reports, and sent her the lecture on epidemics. What a good thing it is that they have the house to house visitation ! ... Mama, A. and 0. all seem to me gloomy ; they declare they are not. Ockey is rather like a man taking a holiday ; she thinks it her duty to be idle, and does not quite know what to do with herself ; but I am going to worry her down to the rocks to hunt for zoophites ; and she has promised to read " Modern Painters." The Crag. 1 August 2nd, 1866. MRS. HILL TO EMILY. . . . We are all very happy here. A. and Octa bathe every day, and read Virgil together after break- fast. . . . After early dinner we all sit out of doors, and the others work while I read Spenser. . . . Octa paints the sunset every night from the field above the house. . . . at 9.30 we sing a hymn and read prayers and then separate, some to bed. F. and I perhaps walk by starlight ; some read in their own room till bedtime. They all go out at low tide to find things which have " suffered a sea change into something rich and strange " on the rocks ; and have been very successful, to F.'s Mrs. Hill and her three daughters were staying near Falmouth in a cottage lent them by Miss Sterling.