We have just returned from a trip around the Sorrentine peninsula. You remember the beauty of that country? The drive is now completed; we drove to Amalfi from Sorrento and on to La Cava, stopped at Ravello and wandered over the villa of Mr. Reed, the English gentleman you remember. It was all just as it was when we saw it in 1878. From La Cava we visited the Benedictine monastery founded in the eleventh century. Saw many interesting manuscripts, among others a marriage contract written on a sheepskin so cut that one sees where the neck and the legs of the animal came. It is dated A.D. 710. The husband endowed the wife with one fourth of his worldly goods; save the Egyptian papyri, I have never seen so curious a document. * * * * * Langen Schwalbach. May 15, 1896. We spent a night at Weisbaden on our way here. There we had the luck to see the German Kaiser at the theater. The town was hung with wreaths, filled with triumphal arches, and quite beside itself on account of the visit of Imperial Bill. He sat in the front of the box surrounded by officers in shining uniform. I don’t like him, because he has treated his mother so outrageously, and because he is so selfish in constantly “dropping in” for a friendly visit to Italy, which costs the Italian Government a pretty penny it can ill afford. The visits are not returned, but he does not take the hint and comes again! He looks like his pictures, only more arrogant. Do you remember how gracious the old Emperor William was, and the Emperor Frederick? He is not like either of them. * * * * * Langen Schwalbach. June 20, 1896. I am aghast as you must be at the Cretan horror; and when the newspapers speak of the United States having helped the Cretans so much in the revolt against their Turkish masters in 1867, I think of Papa and you, who were the moving spirits in that great and generous American aid. I feel so little and helpless, I wish I could have been a giant too! But what was Caesar’s son? After all, I think you and Papa are lucky in that you didn’t have a family of fools, like so many great people. * * * * *