(A Miss Spring-Rice she was.) But the poor Hawthornes suffer seriously.

Una is dissolved to a shadow of herself by reiterated attacks, and now Miss Shepherd is seized with gastric fever.

Mr.
Hawthorne is longing to get away--where, he knows not.
My Peni has conquered his cold, and when the weather gets milder I shall let him out.

Meanwhile he has taken to--what do you suppose?
I go into his room at night and find him with a candle regularly settled on the table by him, and he reading, deeply rapt, an Italian translation of 'Monte Cristo.' Pretty well for a lion-cub, isn't it?
He is enchanted with this book, lent to him by our padrona; and exclaims every now and then, 'Oh, magnificent, magnificent!' And this morning, at breakfast, he gravely delivered himself to the following effect: 'Dear mama, for the future I mean to read _novels_.

I shall read all Dumas's, to begin.