Your ever affectionate E.B.B.
* * * * * _To Mrs.Martin_ [Paris]: 3 Rue du Colisee: February 21, [1856].
My dearest Mrs.Martin,--I should have answered your note days ago! If you saw how I am in a plague of industry just now, and not a moment unspotted!--how, for instance, I kept an 'Examiner' newspaper (sent to us from London) three days on the table before I could read it,--you would make an allowance for me.

It's a sort of _furia_! I must get over so much writing, or I shall be too late for the summer's printing.

If it isn't done by June, what will become of me?
I shall go back to Italy in disgrace, and considerably poorer than I need be, which is of more practical consequence.

So I fag.

Then there's an hour and a half in the morning for Penini's lessons.