along of my not hearing from you!! I have torn all my hair off, and
constantly beat my unoffending family. Wild notions have occurred to me
of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. Then I remember that you
have probably written to prepare _your_ man, and restrain my audacious
hand. Then Stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly mysterious
visage, and says that a rat has appeared in the kitchen, and it's his
opinion (Stone's, not the rat's) that the drains want "compo-ing;" for
the use of which explicit language I could fell him without remorse. In
my horrible desire to "compo" everything, the very postman becomes my
enemy because he brings no letter from you; and, in short, I don't see
what's to become of me unless I hear from you to-morrow, which I have
not the least expectation of doing.
Going over the house again, I have materially altered the
plans--abandoned conservatory and front balcony--decided to make Stone's
painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly six inches higher than the
room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to a
back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended
drawing-room--now school-room--to a manageable size, making a door of
communication between the new drawing-room and the study. Curtains and
carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in
preparation, and still--still--