the English fleet (which he reminds me of) might obtain for you and for England the most ‘satisfactory compensation’ of the pecuniary kind.  At Rome I shall not be frightened, knowing my Italians.  Then there will be more comfort, and, besides, no horrible sea-voyage.  Some Americans have told us that the Mediterranean is twice as bad as the Atlantic.  I always thought it twice as bad as anything, as people say elegantly.  We shall not leave Florence till November.  Robert must see W. Landor (his adopted son, Sarianna) settled in his new apartment, with Wilson for a duenna.  It’s an excellent plan for him, and not a bad one for Wilson.  He will pay a pound (English) a week for his three rooms, and she is to receive twenty-two pounds a year for the care she is to take of him, besides what is left of his rations.  Forgive me if Robert has told you this already.  Dear darling Robert amuses me by talking of his ‘gentleness and sweetness.’  A most courteous and refined gentleman he is, of course, and very affectionate to Robert (as he ought to be), but of self-restraint he has not a grain, and of suspiciousness many grains.  Wilson will run certain risks, and I for one would rather not meet them.  What do you say to dashing down a plate on the floor when you don’t like what’s on it?  And the contadini at whose house he is lodging now have been already accused of opening desks.  Still, upon that occasion (though there was talk of the probability of Landor’s throat being ’cut in his sleep’), as on other occasions, Robert succeeded in soothing him, and the poor old lion is very quiet on the whole, roaring softly, to beguile the time, in Latin alcaics against his wife and Louis Napoleon.  He laughs carnivorously when I tell him that one of these days he will have to write an ode in honour of the Emperor, to please me.

Little Pen has been in the utmost excitement lately about his pony, which Robert is actually going to buy for him.  I am said to be the spoiler, but mark!  I will confess to you that, considering how we run to and fro, it never would have entered into the extravagance of my love to set up a pony for Penini.  When I heard of it first, I opened my eyes wide, only no amount of discretion on my part could enable me to take part against both Pen and Robert in a matter which pleases Pen.  I hope they won’t combine to give me an Austrian daughter-in-law when Peni is sixteen.  So I say ‘Yes,’ ‘Yes,’ ‘Certainly,’ and the pony is to be bought, and carried to Rome (fancy that!), and we are to hunt up some small Italian princes and princesses to ride with him at Rome (I object to Hatty Hosmer, who has been thrown thirty times[70]).  In fact, Pen has been very coaxing about the pony.  He has beset Robert in private and then, as privately, entreated me, ’if papa spoke to me about the pony, not to discourage him.’  So I discouraged nobody, but am rather triumphantly glad, upon the whole, that we have done such a very foolish, extravagant thing.