two ago, when she saw a plum-pudding come upon the table, she could not contain herself, but, springing up into her chair (for she can never express satisfaction without using her legs--her intoxications seeming to take direction the reverse of common), she began dancing and waving her arms quite like a Bacchanal, at the same time singing-- ‘Oh, quanto mi piace, roba dolce, il puddino! Quando lo mangio, sono felice, padrino!’ I offer this to Jemmy to translate, as an Italian exercise, for his paper. If it be not equal to Dante, upon my word I think it quite up to a good deal of Tasso, and much more to the point than nine tenths of Petrarca. Improvisations are seldom put to the test of being written down, but this bears it very well. The tender _padrino_--_Dear little Father_--was an adroit bribe, which got her a third piece of pudding by the unanimous vote of our household senate. Ask Charlie to read over the muddy stuff which Byron thought it necessary to pump up about St. Peter’s, etc., in ‘Childe Harold,’ and say if he do not agree with me that his lordship would have made a better hand of it if he had devoted himself to sincerities like this?... “As for Walter, he grows and thrives finely. He can say A, B, C, D, or something considerably like it--nearer, in fact, a good deal, than the first four letters of the Chinese alphabet would be. He has done, during the last week, what I have challenged many older persons to do, namely, cut a double tooth. I doubt if a cabinet minister in Europe can say the same of himself. He has grown very fond of his papa, and sometimes crawls to my door of a morning before I am out of bed, and then, getting upon his feet, knocks and calls ‘Papa! papa!’ laying the accent very strongly on the first syllable. If he hears my voice, he immediately springs up in Mary’s lap, and begins shouting lustily for me. He is the fairest boy that ever was seen, and has the bluest eyes, and is the baldest person in Rome except two middle-aged Englishmen, who, you know, have a great knack that way.... In a word, he is one of that countless number of extraordinary boys out of which the world contrives afterward to make such ordinary men. I think him rather intelligent--but, as the picture dealers say, _chi sa_? As he is mine, I shall do rather as the picture-buyers, and call what I have got by any name I please. One cannot say definitely so early. It is hard to tell of a green shoot just worming out of the ground whether it will be an oak or an onion--they all look much alike at first.”