blessings of no small
value, and when people tell me, by way of cheering me up under a
temporary disgrace, that he is sure to be in office again soon,
they little know what a knell their words are to my heart. However,
_che sara, sara_, and in the meantime we are very happy.
Yesterday I required some excitement, I must say, to carry me
through the day, for alas! I struck forty! Accordingly the children
had provided for it unknown to me, and acted Beauty and the Beast
with rapturous applause to a very select audience. ... We are much
pleased with our new home, green and cheerful and varied and pretty
outside, snug and respectable inside.

Ever sincerely yours,

F. RUSSELL

P.S.--I hear you are going to be married to a great many people;
please let me know how many reports are true.

In 1856 Lady John and the children went abroad. They visited Lady Mary
Abercromby, whose husband was British Minister at the Hague, and later on
they joined Lord John at Antwerp. Thence they travelled to Switzerland,
where they remained till the end of September in a villa beautifully
situated above the Lake of Geneva, near Lausanne. The early part of the
winter was spent in Italy, where Lord John came into personal contact with
Cavour and many other Italian patriots, whose cause he so staunchly
supported during the next few years. The Villa Capponi, where they lived at
Florence, became the meeting-place of all the Liberal spirits in Tuscany;
and the Tuscan Government, who thought that Lord John had come to Florence
to estimate the probable success of the revolutionaries, set spies upon his
visitors.

_Lord John Russell to Lady Melgund_

VILLA CAPPONI, _December_ 19, 1856

We have passed our time here very agreeably. Besides the
Florentines and their acute sagacity, we have had here many of
those whose wits were too bright or their hearts too warm to bear
the Governments of Naples and Rome.... As for the French
newspapers, it is the custom at Paris and Vienna to let the
newspapers attack everything but their own Government, which is
their notion of the liberty of the Press!

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

VILLA CAPPONI, FLORENCE, _January_ 1, 1857

MY DEAREST MARY,--You have my first date for the New Year.... God
grant it may be a happy one to us all. We began it merrily. Mrs. E.
Villiers, who, with her