I set out after her to Milan; thence to Bologna, where I thought I had traces of her. From that I went to Rimini, and on a false scent down to Ancona. I got into a slight row there with the police, and was obliged to retrace my steps, and arrived at Parma, after three weeks' incessant travelling, heart-broken and defeated. That I shall ever rally,--that I shall ever take any real interest in life again, is totally out of the question. Such an opportunity of fortune as this rarely occurs to any one once in life; none are lucky enough to meet it a second time. The governor, too, instead of feeling, as he ought, that he has been the cause of my ruin, continues to pester me about the indolent way I spend my life, and inveighs against even the little dissipations that I endeavor to drown my sorrows by indulging in. It 's all very well to talk about active employment, useful pursuits, and so forth; but a man ought to have his mind at ease, and his heart free from care, for all these, as I told the governor yesterday. When a fellow has got such a "stunner" as I have had lately, London porter and a weed are his only solace. Even Tiverton's society is distasteful, he has such a confoundedly flippant way of treating one. I 'm thinking seriously of emigrating, and wish you could give me any useful hints on the subject. Tiverton knows a fellow out there, who was in the same regiment with himself,--a baronet, I believe,--and he's doing a capital stroke of work with a light four-in-hand team that he drives, I think, between San Francisco and Geelong, but don't trust me too far in the geography; he takes the diggers at eight pounds a head, and extra for the "swag." Now that is precisely the thing to suit me; I can tool a coach as well as most fellows: and as long as one keeps on the box they don't feel it like coming down in the world! I half suspect Tiverton would come out too. At least, he seems very sick of England, as everybody must be that has n't ten thousand a year and a good house in Belgravia. I don't know whither we go from this, and, except in the hope of hearing from you, I could almost add, care as little. The governor has got so much better from the good air and the regimen, that he is now anxious to be off; while my mother, attributing his recovery to the saint's interference, wants another "Novena." Mary Anne likes the place too; and Cary, who sketches all day long, seems to enjoy it. How the decision is to come is therefore not easy to foresee. Meanwhile, whether _here_ or _there_, Believe me your attached friend, James Dodd. [Illustration: 210]