Why, you looked really well last summer; and I want to see you looking well this summer, for we shall probably be in London in June--more's the pity, perhaps! The gladness I have in England is so leavened through and through with sadness that I incline to do with it as one does with the black bread of the monks of Vallombrosa, only pretend to eat it and drop it slyly under the table.
If it were not for some ties I would say 'Farewell, England,' and never set foot on it again.

There's always an east wind for _me_ in England, whether the sun shines or not--the moral east wind which is colder than any other.

But how dull to go on talking of the weather: _Sia come vuole_, as we say in Italy.
To-morrow is the great _fete_ of your Louis Napoleon, the distribution of the eagles.

We have done our possible and impossible to get tickets, because I had taken strongly into my head to want to go, and because Robert, who didn't care for it himself, cared for it for me; but here's the eleventh hour and our prospects remain gloomy.

We did not apply sufficiently soon, I am afraid, and the name of the applicants has been legion.