So, instead of him, you shall hear what I have been doing to-day.  The sun, which drew out you and the hawthorns, persuaded me that it was warm enough to go down-stairs—­and I put on my cloak as if I were going into the snow, and went into the drawing-room and took Henrietta by surprise as she sate at the piano singing.  Well, I meant to stay half an hour and come back again, for I am upon ’Tinkler’s ground’ in the drawing-room and liable to whole droves of morning visitors—­and Henrietta kept me, kept me, because she wanted me, besought me, to stay and see the great sight of Capt.  Surtees Cook—­plus his regimentals—­fresh from the royal presence at St. James’s, and I never saw him in my life, though he is a sort of cousin.  So, though I hated it as you may think, ... not liking to be unkind to my sister, I stayed and stayed one ten minutes after another, till it seemed plain that he wasn’t coming at all (as I told her) and that Victoria had kept him to dinner, enchanted with the regimentals.  And half laughing and half quarrelling, still she kept me by force, until a knock came most significantly ... and ’There is Surtees’ said she ... ‘now you must and shall stay!  So foolish,’ (I had my hand on the door-handle to go out) ’he, your own cousin too! who always calls you Ba, except before Papa.’  Which might have encouraged me perhaps, but I can’t be sure of it, as the very next moment apprized us both that no less a person than Mrs. Jameson was standing out in the passage.  The whole 36th. regiment could scarcely have been more astounding to me.  As to staying to see her in that room, with the prospect of the military descent in combination, I couldn’t have done it for the world! so I made Henrietta, who had drawn me into the scrape, take her up-stairs, and followed myself in a minute or two—­and the corollary of this interesting history is, that being able to talk at all after all that ‘fuss,’ and after walking ‘up-stairs and down-stairs’ like the ancestor of your spider, proves my gigantic strength—­now doesn’t it?

For the rest, ‘here be proofs’ that the first person can be as foolish as any third person in the world.  What do you think?

And Mrs. Jameson was kind beyond speaking of, and talked of taking me to Italy.  What do you say?  It is somewhere about the fifth or sixth proposition of the sort which has come to me.  I shall be embarrassed, it seems to me, by the multitude of escorts to Italy.  But the kindness, one cannot laugh at so much kindness.

I wanted to hear her speak of you, and was afraid.  I could not name you.  Yet I did want to hear the last ‘Bell’ praised.

She goes to Ireland for two months soon, but prints a book first, a collection of essays.  I have not seen Mr. Kenyon, with whom she dined yesterday.  The Macreadys were to be there, and he told me a week ago that he very nearly committed himself in a ‘social mistake’ by inviting you to meet them.