gladness by my poor husband, and announcing the birth of his child, reached her address.  ‘It would have made her heart bound,’ said her daughter to us.  Poor, tender heart, the last throb was too near.  The medical men would not allow the news to be communicated.  The next joy she felt was to be in heaven itself.  My husband has been in the deepest anguish, and indeed, except for the courageous consideration of his sister, who wrote two letters of preparation saying that ‘she was not well,’ and she ’was very ill,’ when in fact all was over, I am frightened to think what the result would have been to him.  He has loved his mother as such passionate natures only can love, and I never saw a man so bowed down in an extremity of sorrow—­never.  Even now the depression is great, and sometimes when I leave him alone a little and return to the room, I find him in tears.  I do earnestly wish to change the scene and air; but where to go?  England looks terrible now.  He says it would break his heart to see his mother’s roses over the wall, and the place where she used to lay her scissors and gloves.  Which I understand so thoroughly that I can’t say, ‘Let us go to England.’  We must wait and see what his father and sister will choose to do or choose us to do, for of course a duty plainly seen would draw us anywhere.  My own dearest sisters will be painfully disappointed by any change of plan, only they are too good and kind not to understand the difficulty, not to see the motive.  So do you, I am certain.  It has been very very painful altogether, this drawing together of life and death.  Robert was too enraptured at my safety, and with his little son, and the sudden reaction was terrible.  You see how natural that was.  How kind of you to write that note to him full of affectionate expressions towards me!  Thank you, dearest friend.  He had begged my sisters to let you know of my welfare, and I hope they did; and now it is my turn to know of you, and so I do entreat you not to delay, but to let me hear exactly how you are and what your plans are for the summer.  Do you think of Paris seriously?  Am I not a sceptic about your voyages round the world?  It’s about the only thing that I don’t thoroughly believe you can do.  But (not to be impertinent) I want to hear so much!  I want first and chiefly to hear of your health; and occupations next, and next your plans for the summer.  Louis Napoleon is astonishing the world, you see, by his firmness and courage; and though really I don’t make out the aim and end of his French republicans in going to Rome to extinguish the republic there, I wait before I swear at him for it till my information becomes fuller.  If they have at Rome such a republic as we have had in Florence, without a public, imposed by a few bawlers and brawlers on many mutes and cowards, why, the sooner it goes to pieces the better, of course.  Probably the French Government acts upon information.  In any case, if the Romans are in earnest they may resist