170 Readings in European History ear for the nightingale's song and an eye for the early flowers, and who carefully observed when one of his babies cut a tooth. Lisbon, January 15, 1582. 281. A let- It is good news for me to learn that you are so well. It ter of Philip seem s to me that your little sister is getting: her eve teeth II to his . daughters, pretty early. Perhaps they are in place of the two which I am on the point of losing and which I shall probably no longer have when I get back. But if I had nothing worse to trouble me, that might pass. . . . We are having terrible weather here ; torrents of rain fall, sometimes with fearful claps of thunder and flashes of lightning. I have never seen such weather at this season. It would be a good thing for you, my elder daughter, if you are still afraid of thunder. It is not cold, but it rains con- tinuously, and just now with such violence that you would say that the whole sky was turning into water. There have been some terrible storms, but there were not so many ships lost as Luis Tristan [a servant] w r rote to you ; indeed, I hardly think any were lost, — nothing except a few little boats. The last courier who had a letter from me for you has probably been delayed, for the Tagus was raging so that he could not leave Tuesday morning as usual, but started Wednesday, so that I doubt if he will arrive before the regular post leaves you. I am inclined to think that Madeleine 1 is no longer so out of patience with me ; but she has been ill for some time. She took some physic, and since has been in a very bad humor. She came here yesterday. She is in a sad state, feeble, old, deaf, — in short, half dead. I believe that all this comes from her drinking, and this is the reason that she is so glad not to have her son-in-law with her. Yester- day she told me that she no longer had any grudge against the person called Mariola about whom she wrote to you, whose real name is Maria Fernandez. I believe her, for I 1 An old servant to whom the king frequently refers in the letters to his daughters.
