Читать книгу Life of Octavia Hill as Told in Her Letters онлайн

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I have written more than I intended, I only meant to let you know we had seen Elizabeth as you seemed to take an interest in her. She is coming to me on Thursday at Devonshire Street.

September 10th, 1856.

Louisa to Emily.

It was such a pretty little cottage where I went. It has a thatched roof with pretty green creepers all over it, and the birds come and build their nests there, and bees and wasps make nests there. At the back of this house there are some beautiful fields, and into these I went, and all round was the garlands of bright nightshade. The field looked one glow of scarlet berries, and of course I gathered some for my dear Miss Ockey, and I put some nightshade and some of Miss Ockey’s own thistles and some buttercups together. The buttercups always remind me of dear Miss Florence. I never see one without thinking of the day I first went with her in the fields, how she jumped up those banks! I think she sprang up them like the silvery-footed Antelope does about the rocks. Miss Ockey was at Miss Harris’s on Sunday and Monday and she did some photographs of leaves, and Miss Harris is agoing to do us each one of our favourite leaves. Mr. Furnivall came on Saturday to see the drawing class given, was not that a gloriously beautiful thing?... Mr. Evans the toy dealer has gave us an order of a pound’s worth of things, and when they were taken in, he gave another order for another nine shillings’ worth of things. Is not that good news? I think we all go on better with our work. Last week I earned ten shillings at ring stands, which I think was wonderful, because I never did any before.... Please come back soon. You have got four weeks longer to stay now. It seems as if you had been away two years.