MY DEAREST SISTER, I have never felt such unwillingness to set off letter writing as this month, and it will be worse and worse and worsted for the next three, and then I shall be ready to write a line to say we are going on board, and after that I never mean to write to you again--never. I am tired of it, and besides, mean to pass the rest of my life with you. What a horrid prospect for you to find me always tugging after you with a long languid Indian story, only diversified by requests for a large fire and shut windows. I would not be you on any account. Besides, think of the obtuseness with which we shall meet each other’s topics. I beg to apprise you at once that I do not remember the botanical name of any one single flower; so don’t expect it. I have gone back to the old childishness of roses, wallflowers, and carnations, and beyond that I cannot charge my memory. I have been ornamenting the garden with some stone vases that the natives make very prettily, and just at the proper moment, Fop, William’s old greyhound, died, so I buried him _symmetrically_ opposite to Chance, and Captain FitzGerald has put two ornamental vases over the two dogs, with a slight tendency to the funereal urn about their design for the consolation of my hurt feelings, and yet sufficiently like flower vases to deceive the Tory Governor-General, so that he cannot be spitefully tempted to pull them down again. Zoe, my new dog, is very pretty and very small, but certainly with none of the genius of her predecessor. In fact, between friends, she is rather dull, but she is such a little helpless thing that nobody can help coaxing her, and I could not expect two Chances in one life. George rather affections her, though he says he thinks a black bottle full of hot water would be quite as good as Zoe sitting on his lap, and full as lovely. Every morning in the auction papers there is a list of “Europe toys” for children, and I found one called a black cloth dog, defective, which is clearly another Zoe for sale. However, all this is only a hypocritical jest. I am very fond of her; and I assume you think that if anything happened to Dandy, you would be obliged to try a successor. One wants something of the sort.