I told you yesterday I had not much faith in my memory retaining even a tithe of what I wished to say to you. The case is far worse than that,--I can really recollect nothing. I know that I had questions to ask, doubts to resolve, and directions to give, but they are all so commingled and blended together in my distracted brain that I can make nothing out of the disorder. The fact is, Tom, the fellow has bled me too far, and it is not at my time of life--58° in the shade, by old Time's thermometer--that one rallies quickly out of the hands of the doctor. I thought myself well enough this morning to look over my accounts; indeed, I felt certain that the inquiry could not be prudently delayed, so I sent for Mary Anne after breakfast, and proceeded in state to a grand audit. I have already informed you that all the material of life here is the very cheapest,--meat about fourpence a pound; bread and butter and milk and vegetables still more reasonable; wine, such as it is, twopence a bottle; fruit for half nothing. It was not, therefore, any inordinate expectation on my part that we should be economizing in rare style, and making up for past extravagance by real retrenchment. I actually looked forward to the day of reckoning as a kind of holiday from all care, and for once in my life revel in the satisfaction of having done a prudent thing. Conceive my misery and disappointment--I was too weak for rage--to find that our daily expenses here, with a most moderate household, and no company, amounted to a fraction over five pounds English a day. The broad fact so overwhelmed me that it was only with camphor-julep and ether that I got over it, and could proceed to details. Proceed to details, do I say! Much good did it do me! for what between a new coinage, new weights and measures, and a new language, I got soon into a confusion and embarrassment that would have been too much for my brain in its best days. Now and then I began to hope that I had grappled with a fact, even a small one; but, alas! it was only a delusion, for though the prices were strictly as I told you, there was no means of even approximating to the quantities ordered in. On a rough calculation, however, it appears that _my_ mutton broth took half a sheep _per diem_. The family consumed about two cows a week in beef; besides hares, pheasants, bams, and capons at will. The servants--with a fourth of the wine set down to me--could never have been sober an hour; while our vegetable and fruit supply would have rivalled Covent Garden Market. "Do you understand this, Mary Anne?" said I. "No, papa," said she. "Does your mother?" said I. "No, papa." "Does Lord George understand it?" "No, papa; but he says he is sure Giacomo can explain everything,--for he is a capital fellow, and honest as the sun!" "And who is Giacomo?" said I.