What you must have thought of me all this time! Of course I never saw the letters which went to Rome.

Letters sent to Poste restante, Rome, are generally lost, even if you are a Roman: and we are no Romans, alas! nor likely to become such, it seems to me.

There's a fatality about Rome to us.

I waited for you to write, and then waited on foolishly for the settlement of our own plans, after I had ascertained that you were not in Devonshire, but in France as usual.

Now, I can't help writing, though I have written a letter already which must have crossed yours--a long letter--so that you will have more than enough of me this time.
It's comfort and pleasure after all to have a good account of you both, my very dear friends, even though one knows by it that you have been sending one 'al diavolo' for weeks or months.