Didn't I get your No. 7 last week? Have I not got your No. 8 this week? And don’t I mean to have your No. 9 next? There is some sense when letters come in that way; it looks almost as if the sea were beginning to listen to reason. We have had heaps of letters during the last fortnight—none of a later date than the middle of January—but there is a quantity of wind just now, and evidently blowing straight from England. You all write in the same odd, dreamy way about some white, cold substance which falls from the sky and cuts up your communication with each other—the tops of Twelfth cakes probably, and very tiresome and sticky it must be.
I always write to you when I am here, because, though all the windows and blinds are shut, and the house, in fact, full of people, there is a false air of liberty and solitude about it, which is exhilarating. The only civility we can show our female guests is to beg them to have tiffin sent to their bungalows, because it must be so unpleasant to cross in the sun; and
