patiently, and throw myself at your feet as soon as you came within sight and hearing.  And now do be as generous as you can, my dear Mrs. Martin, and try to forgive one who never could be guilty of the fault of forgetting you, notwithstanding appearances.  We heard only yesterday of your being expected at Colwall.  And although we cannot welcome you there, otherwise than in this way, at the distance of 140 miles, yet we must welcome you in this way, and assure both of you how glad we are that the same island holds all of us once more.  It pleased us very much to hear how you were enjoying yourselves in Rome; and you must please us now by telling us that you are enjoying yourselves at Colwall, and that you bear the change with English philosophy.  The fishing at Abbeville was a link between the past and the present; and would make the transition between the eternal city and the eternal tithes a little less striking.  My wonder is how you could have persuaded yourselves to keep your promise and leave Italy as soon as you did.  Tell me how you managed it.  And tell me everything about yourselves—­how you are and how you feel, and whether you look backwards or forwards with the most pleasure, and whether the influenza has been among your welcomers to England.  Henrietta and Arabel and Daisy[18] were confined by it to their beds for several days and the two former are only now recovering their strength.  Three or four of the other boys had symptoms which were not strong enough to put them to bed.  As for me, I have been quite well all the spring, and almost all the winter.  I don’t know when I have been so long well as I have been lately; without a cough or anything else disagreeable.  Indeed, if I may place the influenza in a parenthesis, we have all been perfectly well, in spite of our fishing and boating and getting wet three times a day.  There is good trout-fishing at the Otter, and the noble river Sid, which, if I liked to stand in it, might cover my ankles.  And lately, Daisy and Sette and Occyta have studied the art of catching shrimps, and soak themselves up to their waists like professors.  My love of water concentrates itself in the boat; and this I enjoy very much, when the sea is as blue and calm as the sky, which it has often been lately.  Of society we have had little indeed; but Henrietta had more than much of it at Torquay during three months; and as for me, you know I don’t want any though I am far from meaning to speak disrespectfully of Mr. Boyds, which has been a pleasure and comfort to me.  His house is not farther than a five minutes’ walk from ours; and I often make it four in my haste to get there.  Ask Eliza Cliffe to lend you the May number of the ‘Wesleyan Magazine;’ and if you have an opportunity of procuring last December’s number, do procure that.  There are some translations in each of them, which I think you will like.  The December translation is my favourite, though I was amanuensis only in the May one.