I am very snug here as to my body, but I do want you to talk to beyond expression, and I cannot bear to think Lucy is missing me all this while. I have been over all my old walks here, and remembering all the corners and rooms and chairs and tables, so that I feel two years the younger. But I wonder how I got on at all without knowing you. Lady Lansdowne is in high favour with me. There is so much to like in her. Him of old I have always doated on, but I have sat with my extinguisher upon my head ever since I arrived, so that I fear, pleased as I am with them, the feeling is not reciprocal. I always shall love this place for having brought me acquainted with old _Mary_, for my liking to her was a sort of halfway-house to my affection for you. I have not an idea who or when anybody is to come. I don’t care. You have lost the art of writing me good long letters. I desire you will mend. Goodbye, Dearie, God bless you. Tell me more. And believe me ever your own PAM. Emmy now, don’t let all my stupid jokes lay about, and don’t because you have nothing ready to say to Mary and Mr. Drummond, in an evil hour go and shew my letter. You know you have done such things, you animal. Remember, I will never write again if you play me this trick. I pour my nonsense into your trusty bosom only in confidence. If I must restrain my nonsense, what a bond of Friendship will be broken! _Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden._ BOWOOD [1819]. That One Pound Bill is for the liquidation of the debt I contracted that morning in Town with you at a shop in Regent Street for value received of silk handkerchiefs, ribbons, etc.... I am fallen in love with Mr. Abercromby.[123] He is quite a darling, mouth and all. The first day I saw him I thought of your face and laughed; but we are now inseparable. He is so natural, so good-natured, and does love nonsense. You would delight in him. The Macdonalds have been here, and they are no loss. She is so very dull, oh dear!--and they are much too newly married to be fit for society.... I take long walks with my dear Lord Lansdowne. Emmy, he is so good, and so knowledgeful, and so liberal, I think he is the most liberal man I ever met with at all, in taste as well as principle. And that is a great merit, for one knows where to have him. Emmy, don’t New Year’s days and all those milestones in one’s life make you very melancholy? They do me to a degree. I take some time shaking off the weight. Of course I won’t say a word of the Dromedaries [Drummonds] to any one, but I don’t see that you have any duty laying in that quarter, particularly as the more you see of them and go to Charing Cross, the more obligations they will imagine themselves bestowing on you. CHAPTER III 1820-1825 _Miss FitzGerald to Miss Eden._ BOWOOD, _February, 1820_.