was determined to write to you to-day, because last night you were so obstinate about the key of the gate; and I burst out laughing, because you came back quite angry and hot, and said a paper key was of no use. George says he dreams quite as much and as childishly, and that he sees the Grenvilles coming in their great green coach, and Mrs. Wickham gets out of it and pursues him into the shrubbery. It is very odd, but the instant one’s mind is left to its own control it rushes back to young days and childish interests; they have made so much more impression than all the graver realities since.
Well, I never expected that on February 15th I should be sitting writing to you 14,000 miles off, and writing with great difficulty, because I am so very hot, though I have taken off my gown and am sitting on a pile of cushions in the stern window of George’s cabin, and with a large fan in one hand. George is in his shirt and trousers, without shoes, sitting on the other half of the sofa, learning his Hindoostanee grammar, and we neither of us can attend to what we are about, because Chance keeps yapping at us to look at a large shark that, with
