“An old priest made me a visit as I was folding my last packet to my daughter.  Observing it to be large, he told me I had done a great deal of business that morning.  I made answer, I had done no business at all; I had only wrote to my daughter on family affairs, or such trifles as make up women’s conversation.  He said gravely, people like your Excellenza do not use to write long letters upon trifles.  I assured him, that if he understood English, I would let him read my letter.  He replied, with a mysterious smile, if I did understand English, I should not understand what you have written, except you would give me the key, which I durst not presume to ask.  What key? (said I, staring) there is not one cypher besides the date.  He answered, cyphers were only used by novices in politics, and it was very easy to write intelligibly, under feigned names of persons and places, to a correspondent, in such a manner as should be almost impossible to be understood by anybody else.

“Thus I suppose my innocent epistles are severely scrutinized; and when I talk of my grandchildren, they are fancied to represent all the potentates of Europe.  This is very provoking.  I confess there are good reasons for extraordinary caution at this juncture; but ’tis very hard I cannot pass for being as insignificant as I really am.”

Lady Mary clearly was happy in Italy, and did not in the least hanker after the delights of London society, which in her earlier days she had so much enjoyed.

“By the account you give me of London, I think it very much reformed; at least you have one sin the less, and it was a very reigning one in my time, I mean scandal:  it must be literally reduced to a whisper, since the custom of living all together.  I hope it has also banished the fashion of talking all at once, which was very prevailing when I was in town, and may perhaps contribute to brotherly love and unity, which was so much declined in my memory, that it was hard to invite six people that would not, by cold looks, or piquing reflections affront one another.  I suppose parties are at an end, though I fear it is the consequence of the old almanac prophecy, “Poverty brings peace”; and I fancy you really follow the French mode, and the lady keeps an assembly, that the assembly may keep the lady, and card money pay for clothes and equipage as well as cards and candles.  I find I should be as solitary in London as I am here in the country, it being impossible for me to submit to live in a drum, which I think so far from a cure of uneasiness, that it is, in my opinion, adding one more to the heap.  There are so many attached to humanity, ’tis impossible to fly from them all; but experience has confirmed to me what I always thought, that the pursuit of pleasure will be ever attended with pain, and the study of ease be most certainly accompanied with pleasures.  I have had this morning as much delight in a walk in the sun as ever I felt formerly in the crowded