My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I am half afraid of your being very angry indeed with me; and perhaps it would be quite as well to spare this sheet of paper an angry look of yours, by consigning it over to Henrietta. Yet do believe me, I have been anxious to write to you a long time, and did not know where to direct my letter. The history of all my unkindness to you is this: I delayed answering your kind welcome letter from Rome, for three weeks, because Henrietta was at Torquay, and I knew that she would like to write in it, and because I was unreasonable enough to expect to hear every day of her coming home. At the end of the three weeks, and on consulting your dates and plans, I found out that you would probably have quitted Rome before any letter of mine arrived there. Since then, I have been inquiring, and all in vain, about where I could find you out. All I could hear was, that you were somewhere between Italy and England; and all I could do was, to wait patiently, and throw myself at your feet as soon as you came within sight and hearing. And now do be as generous as you can, my dear Mrs. Martin, and try to forgive one who never _could_ be guilty of the fault of forgetting you, notwithstanding appearances. We heard only yesterday of your being expected at Colwall. And although we cannot welcome you there, otherwise than in this way, at the distance of 140 miles, yet we must welcome you in this way, and assure both of you how glad we are that the same island holds all of us once more. It pleased us very much to hear how you were enjoying yourselves in Rome; and you must please us now by telling us that you are enjoying yourselves at Colwall, and that you bear the change with English philosophy. The fishing at Abbeville was a link between the past and the present; and would make the transition between the eternal city and the eternal tithes a little less striking. My wonder is how you could have persuaded yourselves to keep your promise and leave Italy as soon as you did. Tell me how you managed it. And tell me everything about yourselves--how you are and how you feel, and whether you look backwards or forwards with the most pleasure, and whether the influenza has been among your welcomers to England. Henrietta and Arabel and Daisy[18] were confined by it to their beds for several days and the two former are only now recovering their strength. Three or four of the other boys had symptoms which were not strong enough to put them to bed. As for me, I have been quite well all the spring, and almost all the winter. I don't know when I have been so long well as I have been lately; without a cough or anything else disagreeable. Indeed, if I may place the influenza in a parenthesis, we have all been perfectly well, in spite of our fishing and boating and getting wet three times a day. There is good trout-fishing at the Otter, and the noble river Sid, which, if I liked to stand in it, _might_ cover my ankles. And lately, Daisy and