CALAIS, DESSIN'S HOTEL, _Dec. 5, 1820_.

Coming back to this place, to the same room where we were seven months
ago, the whole seems to me and to my companions like a delightful dream,
but in waking from Alps, and glaciers, and cascades, and _Mont Blanc_,
and troops of acquaintance in splendid succession and visionary
confusion, in waking from this wonderful dream, the sober certainty of
happiness remains and assures us that all which has passed is not a
dream. All our old friends at Paris are still more our friends than
ever, and many new ones made. Every expectation, every hope that I had
formed for this journey has been more than gratified, far surpassed by
the reality; and we return with thorough satisfaction to our own
country, looking to our dear home for permanent happiness, without a
wish unsatisfied or a regret for anything we have left behind, except
our friends.


_To_ MISS RUXTON.

MALI, CLIFTON, _Dec. 17, 1820_.

We have spent a week here with Emmeline, [Footnote: The eldest of Miss
Edgeworth's own sisters, wife of John King, Esq., of Clifton.] and very
happy I am that we were able to give her this pleasure. Zoe and Emmeline
are very nice-looking girls, pleasing in their manners and affectionate
in their dispositions.

We are not, tell my aunt, likely to be drawn in to talk or take any part
about the Queen, as we know nothing of her trial. She sent notice to