I am afraid I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you, as I cannot go to London to-morrow, and from Tuesday till Friday we are engaged to the John Thynnes. In the improbable event of your charming expedition being postponed, we should be quite delighted if you and Mrs. and Miss Reeve would come here on Saturday. As it is now nearly twenty-two years since I left Spain (how time flies!), new generations have sprung up of whom I know nothing. There are two persons--Mme. de Montijo and Olozaga [Footnote: Reeve had known him as the Spanish ambassador in Paris fifteen years.]--who I should have liked you to see as social and political _ciceroni_; but the former is at Paris, in the deepest affliction at the death of her daughter, and the latter is just gone to Italy, as I heard two days ago from Howden. Of course you know that clever, agreeable little fellow Comyn, who was _charge d'affaires_ here, and is now under-secretary at the F.O. in Madrid? If not, I will send you a letter to him. I wound up at Wiesbaden by a severe attack of gout, which seemed to please my Esculapius more than it did me; for when I showed him my misshapen scarlet claw of a foot, he rubbed his hands and said, 'Oh dat is a beautiful manifest podagra.' It came just at the same time as the Skelmersdales, and prevented my going about with them. Wasn't that just like the gout? I never doubted that as soon as the guerillero business was over and civil organisation began, Garibaldi would prove a mischievous, spoiled child.... The French Government and their friends want the Pope to remain at Rome, thinking that _la France Catholique_ would resent his evasion, as a proof of mistrust of the Emperor; but the Emperor wants him to go; as he would then withdraw his garrison and let Rome take its chance, which he thinks would close his accounts with the followers of Orsini; and he dislikes having to reinforce his garrison, which he must do if the Pope decides on remaining. I have brought the amethyst beads you desired to have for Mme. Van de Weyer, and I dare say somebody will be going up to-morrow or next day by whom I can send them to you. The man wanted rather more than 5 L for them, but on my walking away from his shop, he, of course, gave them for that sum. _From Lord Brougham_ _Brougham, October 1st_.--We have all here been greatly disappointed at not having seen you and our kinswoman,[Footnote: Miss Reeve, Brougham's second cousin twice removed. Through the Robertsons, Brougham and John Richardson were second cousins.] and I believe we have little chance now, as you talked of going abroad as soon as your quarterly labours were over. We shall be here the whole month; then take our southward flight....