She came as I wrote those words. She knows _you_, among her other
advantages, and we have been talking of you, dear friend, and we are
going to her on Friday evening to see some of the French. I shall have
to go to prison very soon, I suppose, as usual, for the winter months,
for here is the twenty-first of October, though this is the first fire
we have had occasion for. It was colder this morning, but we have had
exquisite weather, really, ever since we left England.

The 'elf' is flourishing in all good fairyhood, with a scarlet rose leaf
on each cheek. Wilson says she never knew him to have such an
irreproachable appetite. He is charmed with Paris, and its magnificent
Punches, and roundabouts, and balloons--which last he says, looking up
after them gravely, 'go to God.' The child has curious ideas about
theology already. He is of opinion that God 'lives among the birds.' He
has taken to calling himself '_Peninni_,'[3] which sounds something like
a fairy's name, though he means it for 'Wiedeman.'

Robert is in good spirits, and inclined to like Paris increasingly. Do
you know I think you have an idea in England that you monopolise
comforts, and I, for one, can't admit it. These snug 'apartments'
exclude the draughty passages and staircases, which threaten your life
every time that you run to your bedroom for a pocket-handkerchief in
England. I much prefer the Continental houses to the English ones, both
for winter and summer, on this account.

So glad I am that you are nearly at the end of your work. To rest after
work, what more than rest that always is!

Write to us often--do! We are not in Italy, and you have no excuse for
even _seeming_ to forget us. We are full in sight still, remember.