sister go with you, I am not much concerned. Should I be? You have but
to say, for my feelings are extremely at your service to dispose as you
please. Let us see: you are to come back to stand for some place; that
will be about April. 'Tis a sort of thing I should do, too; and then we
should see one another, and that would be charming: but it is a sort of
thing I have no mind to do; and then we shall not see one another,
unless you would come hither--but that you cannot do: nay, I would not
have you, for then I shall be gone.--So, there are many _ifs_ that just
signify nothing at all. Return I must sooner than I shall like. I am
happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my situation. I am lodged with Mr.
Mann, the best of creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an
open gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over against me
is the famous Gallery: and, on either hand, two fair bridges. Is not
this charming and cool? The air is so serene, and so secure, that one
sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only
covered with a slight gauze to keep away the gnats. Lady Pomfret has a
charming conversation once a week. She has taken a vast palace and a
vast garden, which is vastly commode, especially to the cicisbeo-part of
mankind, who have free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours.
You know her daughters: Lady Sophia is still, nay she must be, the
beauty she was: Lady Charlotte is much improved, and is the cleverest
girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine. The
Princess Craon has a constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one
is quite at one's ease. I am going into the country with her and the
prince for a little while, to a villa of the Great Duke's. The people
are good-humoured here and easy; and what makes me pleased with them,
they are pleased with me. One loves to find people care for one, when
they can have no view in it.

[Footnote 1: "Admiral Hosier's Ghost" is the title of a ballad by Glover