Mrs. D. had been looking over my shoulder, Tom, while I was writing the last line, and we have just had what she calls an "explanation," but what ordinary grammarians would style--a row. She frankly and firmly declares that I may try Timbuctoo or the Gambia if I like, but back to Ireland she positively will not go! She informs me, besides, that she is quite open to an arrangement about a separate maintenance. But my property, Tom, is like poor Jack Heffernan's goose,--it would n't bear carving, so he just helped himself to it all! And, as I said to Mrs. D., two people may get some kind of shelter under one umbrella, but they 'll infallibly be wet through if they cut it in two, and each walk off with his half. "If you were a bit of a gentleman," said she, "you 'd give it all to the lady." That's what I got for my illustration. But now that I 'm safe once more, I repeat, you shall certainly see us back in our old house again, and which, for more reasons than I choose to detail here, we ought never to have quitted. I have been just sent for to a cabinet council of the family, who are curious to know whither we are going from this; and as I wish to appear prepared with a plan, and am not strong in geography, I 'll take a look at the map before I go. I've hit it, Tom,--Parma. Parma will do admirably. It's near, and it's never visited by strangers. There 's a gallery of pictures to look at, and, at the worst, plenty of cheese to eat. Tourists may talk and grumble as they will about the dreary aspect of these small capitals, without trade and commerce, with a beggarly Court and a ruined nobility,--to me they are a boon from Heaven. You can always live in them for a fourth of the cost of elsewhere. The head inn is your own, just as the Piazza is, and the park at the back of the palace. It goes hard but you can amuse yourself poking about into old churches, and peeping into shrines and down wells, pottering into the market-place, and watching the bargaining for eggs and onions; and when these fail, it's good fun to mark the discomfiture of your womankind at being shut up in a place where there's neither opera nor playhouse,--no promenade, no regimental band, and not even a milliner's shop. From all I can learn, Parma will suit me perfectly; and now I 'm off to announce my resolve to the family. Address me there, Tom, and with a sufficiency of cash to move further when necessary. I 'm this moment come back, and not quite satisfied with what I 've done. Mrs. D. and Mary Anne approve highly of my choice. They say nothing could be better. Some of us must be mistaken, and I fervently trust that it may not be Your sincere friend, Kenny James Dodd. LETTER XIV. JAMES DODD TO LORD GEORGE TIVERTON, M.P. Cour de Vienne, Mantua.