TALBOT592

New London Inn
Exeter

Monday 13^th March 1876

My dear Henry

I was very sorry to miss seeing you at Bath yesterday – but I should have been very sorry to have lured you from your comfortable retreat, even if you could have come, in such weather. It was really too doleful & too miserably cold – & I was in great ammirazione ¹ at Rosamond’s ² energy, in starting off to Lacock at 7 this morning!!!

I spent a very pleasant afternoon & evening at N^o 4. Constance ³ seemed very well, & Amandier ⁴ better – than I expected.

(Please excuse all these pâtés ⁵ – but the ink will run.) I left Bath at 2 – & arrived here so early I had half a mind to go & see Price & Lucombe’s garden – but I found it was a mile off – & it was dismal & cold – so I gave it up. – There are floods all over the country again – & I never saw the Avon look like the Tiber before – but from the window at the Station at Bath, it resembled it exactly. The same colour, & excessively rapid – & higher than the thresholds of sundry doors that open on to it, from the houses on the opposite bank.

What do you think of the Queen’s ⁶ new title? Don’t you think d’Izzy ⁷ was very mysterious & tiresome, & disagreeable ab^t it?

When you write, please send me the Greek sentence (in Greek letters), spoken by the Spartan mothers, when they gave their Sons their shields.

2

It is certainly less cold here. I always find a perceptible change of climate at Exeter.

I intend to go on to M^t E. ⁸ by a train which starts at about 2 tomorrow. –

Y^r aff^te Sister

Caroline