It was arranged that after our stay in Lancashire we should go on to Paris. This news was received with great joy and thankfulness in my family, where we had not been expected so soon, and where the sorrow for my absence was still so keen that my father wrote to my husband: "Chaque fois que je rentre je m'attends à la voir accourir au devant de moi et chaque désillusion est suivie de tristesse. Il n'est pas jusqu'au piano dont le mutisme me fait mal. J'ai beau me dire que ces impatiences, ces chagrins sont de la faiblesse: je le sais, je le sens, et je n'en suis pas plus fort."
The love of improvements, which was one of Gilbert's characteristics, had led him to plan a road on the island, which should go from the house to the lowest part of the shore, where the lake dried up in summer, so as to facilitate the conveyance of goods, which could then be carted without unloading from Inverary to the barn or kitchen-door. He gave very minute directions to Thursday and Dugald, and set them to their work just before we left for France, telling them that he expected to find the road finished on our return.
We started in November, and arrived at Todmorden on a wet day; and just before leaving the railway carriage we were much amused by a gentleman who answered the query "Is this Todmorden?" by letting down the window and thrusting his hand out, after which he gravely said: "It is raining; it must be Todmorden."
My husband's uncle, Thomas Hamerton, with his two daughters, was awaiting us at the station to welcome us and take us to his house, where we found Mrs. Hamerton, who received us very kindly, but called me Mrs. Philip Gilbert, because she despaired of ever pronouncing my Christian name rightly. I begged her to call me "niece," and her husband gave the example by calling me "my niece Eugeneï." Our cousins Anne and Jane spoke French very creditably, although they had never been in France, and we were soon on friendly terms. When my husband was away, they translated my answers to their mother's numerous questions about our life in the Highlands, my occupations, tastes, French habits, and what not. Although my powers of expression in English were very limited, I understood the greater part of what was said, and Mrs. Hamerton and my cousins being so encouraging, I did not feel so timid, and if I had stayed longer I should most certainly have made rapid progress. On that score my husband--P. G., as they called him in the family circle--was taken to task and scolded for having been too severe with "his poor little foreign wife." His cousins, with whom he was on brotherly terms, were much pleased with the soft French pronunciation of the name Gilbert, and dropped the P. G. decisively, to the great wonder of their mamma.