Dear Miss Roper,--By this you are safely away, we are hoping, Many a league from Rome; ere long we trust we shall see you. How have you travelled? I wonder;--was Mr. Claude your companion? As for ourselves, we went from Como straight to Lugano; So by the Mount St. Gothard; we meant to go by Porlezza, Taking the steamer, and stopping, as you had advised, at Bellaggio, Two or three days or more; but this was suddenly altered, After we left the hotel, on the very way to the steamer. So we have seen, I fear, not one of the lakes in perfection. Well, he is not come, and now, I suppose, he will not come. What will you think, meantime? and yet I must really confess it;-- What will you say? I wrote him a note. We left in a hurry, Went from Milan to Como, three days before we expected. But I thought, if he came all the way to Milan, he really Ought not to be disappointed: and so I wrote three lines to Say I had heard he was coming, desirous of joining our party;-- If so, then I said, we had started for Como, and meant to Cross the St. Gothard, and stay, we believed, at Lucerne, for the summer. Was it wrong? and why, if it was, has it failed to bring him? Did he not think it worth while to come to Milan? He knew (you Told him) the house we should go to. Or may it, perhaps, have miscarried? Any way, now, I repent, and am heartily vexed that I wrote it. There is a home on the shore of the Alpine sea, that upswelling High up the mountain-sides spreads in the hollow between; Wilderness, mountain, and snow from the land of the olive conceal it; Under Pilatus's hill low by the river it lies; Italy, utter the word, and the olive and vine will allure not,-- Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage impede; Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover, Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the traveller haste? Canto V. There is a city, upbuilt on the quays of the turbulent Arno, Under Fiesole's heights,--thither are we to return? There is a city that fringes the curve of the inflowing waters, Under the perilous hill fringes the beautiful bay,-- Parthenope, do they call thee?--the Siren, Neapolis, seated Under Vesevus's hill,--are we receding to thee?-- Sicily, Greece, will invite, and the Orient;--or are we turn to England, which may after all be for its children the best? I. Mary Trevellyn, at Lucerne, to Miss Roper, at Florence.