Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/491

 Mr. Ghose’s brother is standing for Deptford. Lord H. says he would not have a chance with a middle-class or rich constituency ; but that there is a strong feeling among the working men that he ought to get in. . . . We have a group of co-operators, who have taken Miss Y.’s hall for a monthly gathering. The tenants’ plays, one for grown up people and two for children, are in full swing.

Casa Coraggio, Bordighera, December 10th, 1885.

Thank you for your sweet birthday letter. . . . To-night we are having some charades in honour of Mr. MacDonald’s birthday. The house is large and full and happy, and I think very good for Edmund. To-day we have rain.

It is strange they prophesied rain yesterday, in consequence of a practice, or rather sham fight, of the French men-of-war. We heard a violent noise at dinner yesterday ; and, going up to the loggia to discover the cause, we saw seven large men-of-war. They said they were 5 miles off, and that they often went out from some bay near Cannes, where they spend the winter, to practise firing. We could see them all confused in the smoke, and the great heaving mass of water somehow caused by the firing.

The MacDonalds are getting up all manner of Christmas things, among others a series of sacred tableaux ; they say the peasants come from far and near to see them.

The little Octavia is a sweet child. It is very touching to see Mrs. MacDonald with her, and also to see young Mr. Jamieson’s widowed house, with all the