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
Sette and Occyta have studied the art of catching shrimps, and soak
themselves up to their waists like professors. My love of water
concentrates itself in the boat; and this I enjoy very much, when the
sea is as blue and calm as the sky, which it has often been lately. Of
society we have had little indeed; but Henrietta had more than much
of it at Torquay during three months; and as for me, you know I don't
want any though I am far from meaning to speak disrespectfully of _Mr.