Do you know, dearest, how this letter was written? By scraps and patches, and interrupted every minute. The gondola is now come to take me to the banker’s. Este is a little place, and the house found without difficulty. I shall count four days for this letter: one day for packing, four for coming here--and on the ninth or tenth day we shall meet. I am too late for the post--but I send an express to overtake it. Enclosed is an order for fifty pounds. If you knew all that I had to do!-- Dearest love, be well, be happy, come to me--confide in your own constant and affectionate, P. B. S. Kiss the blue-eyed darlings for me, and do not let William forget me. Clara cannot recollect me. [16] _i.e._, Harriet Byron, in Richardson’s novel of _Sir Charles Grandison_.--Ed. TO MRS. SHELLEY (_I Cappuccini--Este_). _Padua, mezzogiorno._ (_Sept. 22, 1818._) My best Mary, I found at Mount Selice a favourable opportunity for going to Venice, where I shall try to make some arrangement for you and little Ca.[17] to come for some days, and shall meet you, if I do not write anything in the mean time, at Padua, on Thursday morning. C. says she is obliged to come to see the Medico, whom we missed this morning, and who has appointed as the only hour at which he can be at leisure--half-past eight in the morning. You must, therefore, arrange matters so that you should come to the Stella d’Oro a little before that hour--a thing to be accomplished only by setting out at half-past three in the morning. You will by this means arrive at Venice very early in the day, and avoid the heat, which might be bad for the babe, and take the time, when she would at least sleep great part of the time. C. will return with the return carriage, and I shall meet you, or send to you at Padua. Meanwhile remember Charles the First--and do you be prepared to bring at least _some_ of Myrra translated; bring the book also with you, and the sheets of “Prometheus Unbound,” which you will find numbered from one to twenty-six on the table of the pavilion. My poor little Clara, how is she to-day? Indeed I am somewhat uneasy about her, and though I feel secure that there is no danger, it would be very comfortable to have some reasonable person’s opinion about her. The Medico at Padua is certainly a man in great practice, but I confess he does not satisfy me. Am I not like a wild swan to be gone so suddenly? But, in fact, to set off alone to Venice required an exertion. I felt myself capable of making it, and I knew that you desired it. What will not be--if so it is destined--the lonely journey through that wide, cold France? But we shall see.