My dear Miss Butler

I wrote to Moor Park to enquire for your address, & was told that a letter addressed to you at M^r Tennant’s would be forwarded, but that you were wandering about Scotland. This, I much fear, augurs badly for Ilkley.—² My Book at last is so nearly finished that I can really & truly see that I shall be a free man at the end of this month. Our plans are rather undecided; but I incline strongly to go to Ilkley, but I fear, without I found it a very tempting place, that it is too late to take a house for my family; & in this case I should stop three or four weeks in the establishment, return home for a week or so, & then go to Moor Park for a few weeks, so as altogether to get a good dose of Hydropathy.³

My object in troubling you with this note,—a trouble, which I hope & believe you will forgive—is to know whether there is any chance of your being at Ilkley in beginning of October. It would be rather terrible to go into the great place & not know a soul. But if you were there I should feel safe & home-like.— You see that all your former kindness makes me confident of receiving more kindness.

I hope that you are well & have had happy visits with your friends,

Pray believe me, my dear Miss Butler, with truth | Yours sincerely obliged | Charles Darwin