I have been for the last two days discharging a most vexatious species of duty--vexatious, to be sure, chiefly from my own fault. We have a household of six servants, and no housekeeper (such an official being unknown in these parts); a very abundant vegetable garden, dairy, and poultry-yard; but I have been very neglectful lately of all domestic details of supply from these various sources, and the consequences have been manifold abuses in the kitchen, the pantry, and the store-room; and disorder and waste, more disgraceful to me, even, than to the people immediately guilty of them. And I have been reproaching myself, and reproving others, and heartily regretting that, instead of Italian and music, I had not learned a little domestic economy, and how much bread, butter, flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and meat ought to be consumed per week in a family of eight persons, not born ogres.... I am sorry to find that my physical courage has been very much shaken by my confinement. Whereas formerly I scarcely knew the sensation of fear, I have grown almost cowardly on horseback or in a carriage. I do not think anybody would ever suspect that to be the case, but I know it in my secret soul, and am much disgusted with myself in consequence.... Our horses ran away with the carriage the other day, and broke the traces, and threatened us with some frightful catastrophe. I had the child with me, and though I did not lose my wits at all, and neither uttered sound nor gave sign of my terror, after getting her safely out of the carriage and alighting myself I shook from head to foot, for the first time in my life, with fear; and so have only just attained my full womanhood: for what says Shakespeare?-- "A woman naturally born to fears." ... God bless you, dearest friend. I am ever yours affectionately, F. A. B.