Belfast
30^th September 1841

My dear Lucy,

We left Newcastle on Thursday last the 23^rd by the railway to Carlyle, from there by the mail coach to Dumfries and Portpatrick, took the packet to Donaghadee concluding with a chaise to No 7 College Square East and found our friends the Wallaces in good health, and extremely glad to welcome us to their comfortable mansion once more. Mrs Lascelles, Mrs Bristow and myself got on very well and bore the fatigue of travelling with great ease and spirit. We set down Mrs Bristow at her Mammas. Mr Mayne called here on Monday and informed me he had paid Captain Binnie £24-4-4 rent and arrears to last May. I think I have paid for those Killough concerns during the year nearly one hundred pounds, and it would be better for me to part with them altogether than to be at such enormous expense. However, I now know of my yearly rent in future. You said you would write to mean and tell me what you have been paid. As I find it so difficult to get tenants to be punctual I have employed Mr Mayne to receive the Killough and Crolly Quarter rents, and settle with Mr Binnie and you will no longer have the trouble of dunning them. Miss Mary Macartney has been to see us often since our return and always asks most kindly for you and to know when we have heard from you. They are getting over their grief for the loss of their mother wonderfully well, her state of health had been so hopeless and deplorable that her removal to a better world was for every reason a desirable event. Mrs Lyons is as usual, enquires kindly for you. A new curate has come to officiate in St Anne’s. I heard him preach on Sunday and am much pleased with him. He is talented, unaffected and preaches without notes. He is considered superior to his predecessor Mr Walker. His name is Monsel, son to Archdeacon of Derry who assists him in the Sunday duties since he came and being a good performer in the pulpit himself, seems to have transmitted his talents in the preaching way to his son. They are a pious and respectable family. The railway will be opened from Belfast to Lurgan on Monday fortnight the 11^th of October. Alexander Cranston has this moment called on business, and obliges me to conclude our love to you and Mrs Johnston. I am glad you have got a clergyman to your mind in Killough to take charge of you,

I am my dear Lucy,

affectly yours,

F.E. Lascelles