We passed the day and the night there, and I would willingly have lingered still longer. From the mountain peak above the convent the two seas at either side of the peninsula are visible, and the Gulf of Genoa and the Adriatic are stretched out at your feet, with the vast plain of Central Italy, dotted over with cities, every name of which is a spell to memory! Thence back to Florence, and all that gay world that seemed so small to the eye the day before! And now, dearest Miss Cox, let me conclude, ere my own littleness become more apparent; for here I am, tossing over laces and embroidery, gazing with rapture at brooches and bracelets, and actually fancying how captivating I shall be when apparelled in all this finery. It would be mere deceitfulness in me were I to tell you that I am not charmed with the splendor that surrounds me. Let me only hope that it may not corrupt that heart which at no time was more entirely your own than while I write myself yours affectionately, Caroline Dodd. LETTER XXXII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF. Florence. Well, my dear Tom, my task is at last completed,--my _magnum opus_ accomplished. I have carried all my measures, if not with triumphant majorities, at least with a "good working party," as the slang has it, and I stand proudly pre-eminent the head of the Dodd Administration. I have no patience for details. I like better to tell you the results in some striking paragraph, to be headed "Latest Intelligence," and to run thus: "Our last advices inform us that, notwithstanding the intrigues in the Cabinet, K. I. maintains his ascendency. We have no official intelligence of the fact, but all the authorities concur in believing that the Dodds are about to leave the Continent and return to Ireland." Ay, Tom, that is the grand and comprehensive measure of family reform I have so long labored over, and at length have the proud gratification to see Law! I find, on looking back, that I left off on my being sent for by Belton. I 'll try and take up one of the threads of my tangled narrative at that point. I found him at his hotel in conversation with a very smartly dressed, well-whiskered, kid-gloved little man, whom he presented as "Mr. Curl Davis, of Lincoln's Inn." Mr. D. was giving a rather pleasant account of the casualties of his first trip to Italy when I entered, but immediately stopped, and seemed to think that the hour of business should usurp the time of mere amusement. Belton soon informed me why, by telling me that Mr. C. D. was a London collector who transacted the foreign affairs for various discounting houses at home, and who held a roving commission to worry, harass, and torment all such and sundry as might have drawn, signed, or endorsed bills, either for their own accommodation or that of their friends.