Dearest Minnie, I was very tired and very restless this morning and could not settle in to anything, so I spent part of the morning in a very anxious combination of pilgrimages in a hansom and most of the time in rain. I looked at the house where Becky Sharp lived on Curzon St just three doors from the one where Lord Beacousfield died. I drove out to Kensington to the very uninteresting street where Thackery lived when he wrote Esmond and Pendennis and Vanity Fair, a broad, low, pleasant looking house now inhabited by a certain Mr. McNiel and then I went to the City, looking at the outsides of a few things, and going into St. PaulGÇÖs for a few moments and last into St. Clement Davies where the service was nearly over and about a dozen sacred little cloisters and perhaps as nearly many more were [illegible] to a congregation of about a dozen or fifteen, one of them a very respectable intelligent looking negro. Dr. JohnstonGÇÖs place was empty and altogether it was impressive. The afternoon I spent partly in talking to Alice and Mary Fulton, both of whom were not well and did not go downstairs and the rest in lying down as I was still very tired. We had meant to go too on a Canterbury pilgrimage yesterday, to stay over Bank Holiday, but AliceGÇÖs not being well broke it up, much to our and particularly to my disappointment, as I have been there only once and then, in 1874, only for a dayGÇÖs excursion there. On Thursday night, I expect to leave for Bayreuth, taking the boat from [illegible] to [illegible], as it gives a much shorter land journey, but it is at best a long trip. If the connections turn out all right I might reach B. at 2:33 on Saturday afternoon, this giving four hours at Antwerp and a little more at Cologne. What a disgracefully blotted sheet but you must have it, for my hand hurts too much to rewrite it. Wednesday, 6th I am so sorry that I have missed a steamer again, but I have been wretched with headache all and every day and interruptions and the getting ready to go off, which I do tonight. I go via [illegible] and Antwerp and dread the whole long journey, but perhaps my next letter may be more cheerful. Your letter of 28th from B.M. (the one with which you were so discontented and with which I am not so) has just come, but it is all I can manage to get ready to get off, so I must say goodbye. I hope your next letter will be from Bayreuth on Sunday. Lovingly yours, Mary E.G. Thanks for letter (your fatherGÇÖs) which I return. I had already read it with interest.
