March 12. 1896 My darling, / I have been down / to Rottingdean and have seen / both your boys. They look / quite well, and Ego especially / is greatly altered for the / better in appearance since / I saw him. Mrs. Stanford / says they do not at all / consider him one of their / delicate boys! That pre- / occupied look was gone - his / expression was far happier - / in every way, & he struck me / as being in better / condition altogether. He and / Guy came to tea with me / last Sunday, and had proper / schoolboy appetites. Mr. / Benson was staying with us / and I asked a very nice / young cousin of his, who is / at the other school, to meet / them, and after tea they all / three went into the garden / with Mr. Benson and got / on well together. Mr. Ben- / son - knowing nothing of Ego's / case - said to me afterwards / that he seemed to dislike / Cheam very much, and / had talked of it in the garden - / saying, with the directness of youth, / that it was a / "beastly school." / I tell you this because / it points in the same direction / as his old talk about the / subject and because I feel / that if I were in your place / I should take the opportunity / now given by his marked im- / provement in health to remove / him from Surrey and settle / him in Sussex on the ground of the climate. He certainly / did not thrive in bodily / health at Cheam - and you / will probably never have anoth- / er chance to make the change / without the slightest offence / to Cheam or discredit to / Ego. I know you will not / mind my speaking in this way / to you - and I do it because / I confess I was frightened at / the boy's look that time / he came down to R'd: with / Fraülein & Guy - he seemed / liked someone absorbed by / melancholy thought - sitting / with fixed eyes & dropped / lips, and staring when he / was spoken to. As far / as I could judge on / Sunday this was quite gone. / Curiously enough I know / a lady in R'dean who / has just gone through / the same thing with one / of her boys, who dropped / and failed in health and / seemed always preoccupied in / mind, but would not, or / could not, give a reason. / She cut the knot by / taking him away from the / school where he was and / sending him to Mr. Stanford / where he is perfectly hap- / py and working well. / - And how are you, my / darling? Shall we / meet at Clouds at Easter, / when your dear mother has / asked me? - / Both the boys looked to / me grown - but it could / scarcely be possible, could it? / Ever your most loving / Georgie