Florence was horribly hot, and pleasant notwithstanding.

We hated cutting the knot of friends we had there--bachelor friends, Isa, who came to us for coffee and smoking! I was gracious and permitted the cigar (as you were not present), and there were quantities of talk, controversy, and confidences evening after evening.

One of our very favourite friends, Frederick Tennyson, is gone to England, or was to have gone, for three months.

Mr.Lytton had a reception on the terrace of his villa at Bellosguardo the evening before our last in Florence, and we were all bachelors together there, and I made tea, and we ate strawberries and cream and talked spiritualism through one of the pleasantest two hours that I remember.

Such a view! Florence dissolving in the purple of the hills; and the stars looking on.