It is seven o'clock. You and Honora, with two or three more select friends, are now probably encircling your dressing-room fireplace. What would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and a snug circle round it, formed by a few sincere friends, transports me. You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as Julia's and her Honora's. Since I can not be there in reality, pray imagine me with you; admit me to your _conversaziones_; think how I wish for the blessing of joining them!--and be persuaded that I take part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope that e'er it be very long your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray keep me a place; let the poker, tongs, or shovel, represent me; but you have Dutch tiles, which are infinitely better; so let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam's ass, be my representative. But time calls me to Clapton. I quit you abruptly till to-morrow, when, if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty. Silvered with her beams, I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps; musing as I homeward plod my way--ah! need I name the subject of my contemplations? _Thursday._ I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well. My sisters send their _amitiés_, and will write in a few days. This morning I returned to town. It has been the finest day imaginable. A solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue horizon; its light was clear and distinct rather than dazzling. The serene beams of the autumnal sun, gilded hills, variegated woods, glittering spires, ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to enchant the eyes, expand the heart, and "Chace all sorrow but despair." In the midst of such a scene no lesser grief can prevent our sympathy with Nature. A calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us with sweet, insinuating power. The very brute creation seems sensible of these beauties; there is a species of mild cheerfulness in the face of a lamb which I have but indifferently expressed in a corner of my paper, and a demure, contented look in an ox, which, in the fear of expressing still worse, I leave unattempted. Business calls me away. I must dispatch my letter. Yet what does it contain?--no matter. You like anything better than news. Indeed, you never told me so; but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject, from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the taste of Julia and _cher Jean_. What is it to you or me--