Marianne Kent Hunt letter to Leigh Hunt, 19th century

              My dearest Love,   

It grieves me beyond anything I can express to chain myself to this miserable place: when I seem to have the power of leaving it. But I have not, in the first place, the 2 boys are shoeless absolutely, they cannot even go in the garden. In the next I am sure unless Ellen was paid her quarter up, which amounts to very nearly £3, - she would be perfectly untractable & if she was paid & I not here she would go immediately, & the house is in a state I can give you no idea of. this /mornig/ morning she refused to do anything & Mary & myself have done all but dress the dinner which she does as badly as she can & though she had only rice & potatoes to dress did not (& scarcely ever does) give it to us before 5 oclock; then she came up to ask me for money for her dinner, which she does every day, as she had nothing but bread she could eat: because I could not give it her she said she must go out & beg some: - go out she did, but I dare say that was all. & I only tell you to shew you what a complete enemy she has become to me & how