Signor Peppi is with us, as you know, and Aunt is happy. If they aren’t engaged now, I think they will be soon. We all went to ride on horseback today and came home nearly dead, though P. was plucky and stuck it out. It is so nice to get on a horse again, you can’t imagine how I enjoy it. I think it is next best to a gondola and a sand-bank. I am sending you, by the way, a little silver gondola with my love. P. S. Is there any news from Don Carlo in South Africa? Did the gardener’s daughter follow him? And my little Spaniard, Gonzaga, how is he? * * * * * A. D. TO POLLY _Monte Catini, July._ Here I am at Monte Catini for a cure. The gods were good to me today, little Polly, indeed they were, for I received a silver gondola and oh, I am so happy! It is the prettiest little toy in the world, and a reminder of the most wonderful evening ever spent. It shall stand on my table before me, though I do not need anything to recall Venice and what is always in my heart. Tell Checkers I will certainly be yours, and I wish he would dictate oftener. I am a little nearer to you than I was yesterday, and that of course is what makes me feel better already. A complete cure would be to be with you. But still, I’m not feeling very well yet, and long for you to write often, whether you are tired, or travelling, or wish to, or don’t! All the way up to Florence on the train I thought of the time when you were there, and how excited I got as I hurried up the stairs and arrived at your rooms all out of breath,--though I hoped you wouldn’t notice it. And this led me to thinking of the wonder of the spring in Rome, and of the dance in the lovely Antici Mattei palace. Do you remember how I stood keeping your place in the cotillion? Why I was even jealous of poor Pittsburgo then, for I didn’t know he was in love with the Italian singer. And how you came out and favored me--it was the sweetest thing that was ever done. Meanwhile, journeying through this age-old land, a snatch of verse goes running through my head. “Helen’s lips are drifting dust, Ilion is consumed with rust; All the galleons of Greece Drink the ocean’s dreamless peace; Stately empires wax and wane-- Babylon, Barbary, and Spain;-- Only one thing, undefaced, Lasts though all the worlds lie waste And the heavens are overturned. --Dear, how long ago we learned.”