Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/55

Rh with myself, occupied the attic. The first floor, which was furnished in the newest and most handsome style, my brother kept for himself. The front room containing the harpsichord was always in order to receive his musical friends and scholars at little private concerts or rehearsals. . . . . Sundays I received a sum for the weekly expenses, of which my housekeeping book (written in English) showed the amount laid out, and my purse the remaining cash. One of the principal things required was to market, and about six weeks after coming to England I was sent alone among fishwomen, butchers, basket-women, &c., and I brought home whatever in my fright I could pick up. . . . My brother Alex, who was now returned from his summer engagement, used to watch me at a distance, unknown to me, till he saw me safe on my way home. But all attempts to introduce any order in our little household proved vain, owing to the servant my brother then had—a hot-headed old Welshwoman. All the articles, tea things, &c., which I was to take in charge, were almost all destroyed: knives eaten up by rust, heaters of the tea-urn found in the ash-hole, &c. And what still further increased my difficulty was, that my brother's time was entirely taken up with business, so that I only saw him at meals. Breakfast was at 7 o'clock or before (much too early for me),—who would rather have remained up all night than be obliged to rise at so early an hour. . ..

"The three winter months passed on very heavily. I had to struggle against heimwehe (home sickness) and low spirits, and to answer my sister's melancholy letters on the death of her husband, by which she became a widow with six children. I knew too little English to derive any consolation from the society of those who were about me, so that, dinner-time excepted, I was entirely left to myself."