well and unaffectedly done. You would be interested in it.

MARTIGNY, _Friday Afternoon, October 21st._

Safely arrived here after a most delightful day, without a cloud. I
walked the whole way. The scenery most beautifully presented. We are in
the hotel where our old St. Bernard party assembled.

I should like to see you all very much indeed.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: The same.]

HOTEL DE LA VILLE, MILAN, _25th October, 1853._

MY DEAREST CATHERINE,

The road from Chamounix here takes so much more time than I supposed
(for I travelled it day and night, and my companions don't at all
understand the idea of never going to bed) that we only reached Milan
last night, though we had been travelling twelve and fifteen hours a
day. We crossed the Simplon on Sunday, when there was not (as there is
not now) a particle of cloud in the whole sky, and when the pass was as
nobly grand and beautiful as it possibly can be. There was a good deal
of snow upon the top, but not across the road, which had been cleared.
We crossed the Austrian frontier yesterday, and, both there and at the
gate of Milan, received all possible consideration and politeness.

I have not seen Bairr yet. He has removed from the old hotel to a larger
one at a few hours' distance. The head-waiter remembered me very well
last night after I had talked to him a little while, and was greatly
interested in hearing about all the family, and about poor Roche. The
boy we used to have at Lausanne is now seventeen-and-a-half--very tall,
he says. The elder girl, fifteen, very like her mother, but taller and
more beautiful. He described poor Mrs. Bairr's death (I am speaking of
the head-waiter before mentioned) in most vivacious Italian. It was all
over in ten minutes, he said. She put her hands to her head one day,
down in the courtyard, and cried out that she heard little bells ringing
violently in her ears. They sent off for Bairr, who was close by. When
she saw him, she stretched out her arms, said in English, "Adieu, my
dear!" and fell dead. He has not married again, and he never will. She
was a good woman (my friend went on), excellent woman, full of charity,
loved the poor, but _un poco furiosa_--that was nothing!

The new hotel is just like the old one, admirably kept, excellently
furnished, and a model of comfort. I hope to be at Genoa on Thursday