[The last words of the letter, with the signature, have been cut off]

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To Mrs. Jameson

La Villa, Bagni di Lucca:  August 22, [1857].

As you bid me write, my dear friend, about Lytton, I write, but I grieve to say we are still very uneasy about him.  For sixteen days he has been prostrate with this gastric fever, and the disease is not baffled, though the pulse is not high nor the head at all affected.  Dr. Trotman, however, is uncheerful about him—­is what medical men call ‘cautious’ in giving an opinion, observing that, though at present he is not in danger, the delicacy of his constitution gives room for great apprehension in the case of the least turning towards relapse.  Robert had been up with him during eight nights, and Isa Blagden eight nights.  Nothing can exceed her devotion to him by night or day.  We have persuaded her, however, at last to call in a nurse for the nights.  I am afraid for Robert, and in fact a trained nurse can do certain things better than the most zealous and tender friend can pretend to do.  You may suppose how saddened we all are.  Dear Lytton!  At intervals he talks and can hear reading, but this morning he is lower again.  In fact, from the first he has been very apprehensive about himself—­inclined to talk of divine things, of the state of his soul and God’s love, and to hold this life but slackly.

I feel I am writing a horrible account to you.  You will conclude the worst from it, and that is what I don’t want you to do.  The pulse has never been high, and is now much lower, and if he can be kept from a relapse he will live.  I pray God he may live.  He is not altered in the face, and Dr. Trotman reiterated this morning, ’There is no danger at present.’

You are better.  I thank God for it.  Oh, yes, it is very beautiful, that cathedral.  The weather here is cool and enjoyable by day even.  At nights it is really cold, and I have thought of a blanket once or twice as of a thing tolerable.  I will write again when there is a change.  The course of the fever may extend to six days more.

Your ever most affectionate
BA.

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To Mrs. Jameson

Thursday, [end of August 1857].

Dearest Friend,—­I think it better to inclose to you this letter which has come to your address.  Thank you for your kind words about Lytton, which will be very soothing to him.  He continues better, and is preparing to take his first drive to-day, for half an hour, with his nurse and Robert.  See how weak he must be, and the hollow cheeks and temples remain as signs of the past.  Still, he is convalescent, and begins to think of poems and apple puddings in a manner other than celestial.  I do thank God that our anxieties have ended so.

Robert bathes in the river every morning, which does him great good; besides the rides at mornings and evenings on mountain ponies with Annette Bracken and a Crimean hero (as Mrs. Stisted has it), who has turned up at the hotel, with one leg and so many agreeable and amiable qualities that everybody is charmed with him.