to dose, drug, and
"oh, fie!" yourselves and each other, according to your own convictions
and consciences.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

18, ORCHARD STREET, December 28th.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I would rather have the "garret" looking towards the sea than the
"bedroom" looking over houses, provided I can have a fire in said
garret; and pray, since I can have my choice of the two rooms, may I
inquire why the one that I do not occupy may not be appropriated to
Hayes's use? It seems to me that if there are two empty rooms for me to
choose from, I may likewise hire them both if I choose, and give one to
my maid, and keep whichever I like best for myself. _Che ti pare, figlia
mia?_ Have the goodness, if you can, to take both the vacant rooms for
me, and I will inhabit the garret, if, as I said before, it is
susceptible of a fire.

I left Mrs. Fitzhugh a little more quiet and composed, in spite of her
having just received the news of Lord Harrowby's being at the point of
death.... She has had much to try her in the melancholy events at
Sandon, and she persists in looking over a whole collection of old
letters, among which she found the other day a miniature of her boy,
Henry, the sailor who died, which she had forgotten that she possessed;
and she comes down from this most trying task of retrospection in a
state of nerves so lamentable that no ingenuity of affection, or utmost
desire to cheer and relieve her, can suggest a sufficiently soothing
process for that purpose. She cannot be amused at all now by anything
that does not excite her, and if she is, over-excited she suffers
cruelly from it. Thus, the reading of "Jane Eyre," which, while I
continued it, kept her in a state of extreme expectation and interest,
appeared to me, upon the whole, afterwards, to have affected her very
unfavorably....

I will bring you Charles Greville's book about your most painful
country, and some music....

Good-bye, dearest Hal. My affectionate love to dear Dorothy.

Ever as ever yours,
FANNY.

18, ORCHARD STREET.

... You ask me for my impression of Dejazet, and the piece I went to see
her in; and here they are. The piece in which she came out was called
"Vert V