peare; and our afternoon is promised
to a cricket-match, for the edification of one of our party, who never
saw one. I must therefore conclude.... Good-bye, dearest Harriet. As for
me, to be once more in pure air, among flowers and under trees, is
all-sufficient happiness. I do cordially hate all towns.

Give my dear love to Mrs. Harry Siddons, if she is near you, and tell
her I shall surely not leave Europe without seeing her again, let her be
where she will. Remember me affectionately to Dorothy, and believe me.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

THE HOO, Thursday, July 29th, 1841.
DEAREST HARRIET,

I wrote to you yesterday, but an unanswered letter of yours lies on the
top of my budget of "letters to answer," and I take it up to reply to
it. The life I am leading does not afford much to say; yet that is not
quite true, for to loving hearts or thinking minds the common events of
every day, in the commonest of lives, have a meaning.... After breakfast
yesterday we took up Lady Dacre's translations from Petrarch--a very
admirable performance, in which she has contrived to bend our northern
utterance into a most harmonious and yet conscientious interpretation
of those perfect Italian compositions. My sister read the Italian,
which, with her pure pronunciation and clear ringing voice, sounded
enchanting; after which I echoed it with the English translation; all
which went on very prosperously, till I came to that touching invocation
written on Good Friday, when the poet, no longer offering incense to his
mortal idol, but penitential supplications to his God, implores pardon
for the waste of life and power his passion had betrayed him into, and
seeks for help to follow higher aims and holier purposes; a pathetic and
solemn composition, which vibrated so deeply upon kindred chords in my
heart that my voice became choked, and I could not read any more. After
this, Adelaide read us some Wordsworth, for which she has a special
admiration; after which, having recovered my voice, I took up "Romeo and
Juliet," for which we all have a special admiration; and so the morning
passed. After lunch, we went, B----, Lord Dacre, and I on horseback,
Lady Dacre, Adelaide, and G---- S---- in the open carriage, to a pretty
village seven miles off, where a cricket-match was being played, into
the mysteries of which some o