The Procters are very well.  How I like Adelaide’s face! that’s a face worth a drove of beauties!  Dear Mrs. Sartoris has just left London, I grieve to say; and so has Mrs. Kemble, who (let me say it quick in a parenthesis) is looking quite magnificent just now, with those gorgeous eyes of hers.  Mr. Kenyon, too, has vanished—­gone with his brother to the Isle of Wight.  The weather has been very uncertain, cloudy, misty, and rainy, with heavy air, ever since we came.  Ferdinando keeps saying, ’Povera gente, che deve vivere in questo posto,’ and Penini catches it up, and gives himself immense airs, discoursing about Florentine skies and the glories of the Cascine to anyone who will listen.  The child is well, thank God, and in great spirits, which is my comfort.  I found my dear sister Arabel, too, well, and it is deep yet sad joy to me to look in her precious loving eyes, which never failed me, nor could.  Henrietta will be hindered, perhaps, from coming to see me by want of means, poor darling; and the same cause will keep me from going to Taunton.  We have a quantity of invitations to go into the country, to the Custs, to the Martins, &c. &c., and (one which rather tempts me) to Knebworth, Sir Edward Lytton having written us the kindest of possible invitations; but none of these things are for us, I see.

Dearest friend, I do hope you won’t go to Rome this winter.  When you have been to Vienna, come back, and let us have you in Paris.  I am glad Lady Elgin liked the book.  The history of it was that she asked Robert to get it for her, and he presented it instead.

Our M. Milsand likes you much, he says, and I like you to hear it....

Oh, we read your graceful, spirited letter in the ‘Athenaeum.’  By the way, did you see the absurd exposition of ‘Maud’ as an allegory?  What pure madness, instead of Maudness!

* * * * *

To Mrs. Martin

13 Dorset Street:  Monday, [August-September 1855].

Day after day, my dearest Mrs. Martin, I have been meaning to write to you, always in vain, and now I hear from Mrs. Ormus Biddulph that you are not quite well.  How is this?  Shall I hear soon that you are better?  I want something to cheer me up a little.  The bull is out of the china shop, certainly, but the broken pottery doesn’t enjoy itself much the more for that.  I have lost my Arabel (my one light in London), who has had to go away to Eastbourne; very vexed at it, dear darling, though she really required change of air.  We, for our parts, are under promise to follow her in a week, as it will be on our way to Paris, and not cost us many shillings over the expenses of the direct route.  But the days drag themselves out, and there remains so much work (on proof sheets, &c.) to be done here, that I despond of our being able to move as soon as I fain would.  I assure you I am stuffed as hard as a cricket ball with the work of every day, and I have waited in vain for a clear hour to write quietly and comfortably to you, in order to say how your letter touched me, dear dear friend.  You always understand.  Your sympathy stretches beyond points of agreement, which is so rare and so precious, and makes one feel so unspeakably grateful....