Do you know, dearest, how this letter was written? By scraps and patches, and interrupted every minute. The gondola is now come to take me to the banker's. Este is a little place, and the house found without difficulty. I shall count four days for this letter: one day for packing, four for coming here—and on the ninth or tenth day we shall meet.
I am too late for the post—but I send an express to overtake it. Enclosed is an order for fifty pounds. If you knew all that I had to do!—
Dearest love, be well, be happy, come to me—confide in your own constant and affectionate
P. B. S.
Kiss the blue-eyed darlings for me, and do not let William forget me. Clara cannot recollect me.
TO MRS. SHELLEY
(I Cappuccini—Este).
Padua, mezzogiorno.
(Sept. 22, 1818.)
My best Mary,
I found at Mount Selice a favourable opportunity for going to Venice, where I shall try to make some arrangement for you and little Ca.[1] to come for some days, and shall meet you, if I do not write anything in the mean time, at Padua, on Thursday morning. C. says she is obliged to come to see the Medico, whom we missed this morning, and who has appointed as the only hour at which he can be at leisure—half-past eight in the morning. You must, therefore, arrange matters so that you should come to the Stella d'Oro a little
- ↑ Clara, born at Marlow, Sept. 3, 1817.—Ed.
