Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/192

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176
MARY LAMB.

got fifty-four guineas at Rochester, and has now several pictures in hand.

"I am going to tell you a secret, for——says she would be sorry to have it talked of. One night ——came home from the ale-house, bringing with him a great rough, ill-looking fellow, whom he introduced——to as Mr. Brown, a gentleman he had hired as a mad-keeper to take care of him at forty pounds a year, being ten pounds under the usual price for keepers, which sum Mr. Brown had agreed to remit out of pure friendship. It was with great difficulty and by threatening to call in the aid of a watchman and constables that—— could prevail on Mr. Brown to leave the house.

"We had a good chearful meeting on Wednesday; much talk of Winterslow, its woods and its nice sunflowers. I did not so much like Phillips at Winterslow as I now like him for having been with us at Winterslow. We roasted the last of his 'beach of oily nut prolific' on Friday at the Captain's. Nurse is now established in Paradise, alias the incurable ward of Westminster Hospital. I have seen her sitting in most superb state, surrounded by her seven incurable companions. They call each other ladies. Nurse looks as if she would be considered as the first lady in the ward; only one seemed like to rival her in dignity.

"A man in the India House has resigned, by which Charles will get twenty pounds a year, and White has prevailed upon him to write some more lottery puffs. If that ends in smoke, the twenty pounds is a sure card, and has made us very joyful. I continue very well and return you my sincere thanks for my good health and improved looks, which have almost made Mrs. Godwin die with envy; she longs to come to