The Very Reverend the Dean of Carlisle, Carlisle.

—Your letter has taken me off the tenter hooks of anxiety. After the great disappointment two years ago, I would not indulge in the belief that the newspaper report would prove true: and yet I did hope: and then I feared: so that your letter really proved a relief from really painful suspense. I said to a friend of ours to-day, that it is the only very pleasant piece of news I have received for years. page 109For this at any rate, Lord John is, as the schoolboys say, "a trump." For once, I am in very good humour with him. As I could only go on repeating expressions of satisfaction, I will only add that your kindness in writing to me has not been wasted.