ments, that we made an
offer for rooms on the spot, and returned to Florence for baby and the
rest of our establishment without further delay. Here we are, then; we
have been here more than a fortnight. We have taken an apartment for
the season--four months--paying twelve pounds for the whole term,
and hoping to be able to stay till the end of October. The living is
cheaper than even at Florence, so that there has been no extravagance
in coming here. In fact, Florence is scarcely tenable during the
summer from the excessive heat by day and night, even if there were no
particular motive for leaving it. We have taken a sort of eagle's nest
in this place, the highest house of the highest of the three villages
which are called the Bagni di Lucca, and which lie at the heart of a
hundred mountains sung to continually by a rushing mountain stream.
The sound of the river and of the cicala is all the noise we hear.
Austrian drums and carriage wheels cannot vex us; God be thanked for
it; the silence is full of joy and consolation. I think my husband's
spirits are better already and his appetite improved. Certainly little
babe's great cheeks are growing rosier and rosier. He is out all day
when the sun is not too strong, and Wilson will have it that he is
prettier than the whole population of babies here. He fixes his
blue eyes on everybody and smiles universal benevolence, rather too
indiscriminately it might be if it were not for Flush. But certainly,
on the whole he prefers Flush. He pulls his ears and rides on him, and
Flush, though his dignity does not approve of being used as a pony,
only protests by turning his head round to kiss the little bare
dimpled feet. A merrier, sweeter-tempered child there can't be than
our baby, and people wonder at his being so forward at four months
old and think there must be a mistake in his age. He is so strong that
when I put out two fingers and he has seized them in his fists he can
draw himself up on his feet, but we discourage this forwardness, which
is not desirable, say the learned. Children of friends of mine at ten
months and a year can't do so much. Is it not curious that _my_ child
should be remarkable for strength and fatness? He has a beaming,
thinking little face, too; oh, I wish you could see it. Then my
own strength has wonderfully improved, just as my medical friends
prophesied; and it seems like a dream when I find myself able to climb
the hills with Robert and help him to los