FANNY.

GREENOCK, October 9th.

I am very glad I did the duty of a hostess, dear Hal, though only in
your dreams, and received you hospitably in my own house, though I was
not conscious of it. As for that fool Mulliner and that brute Jeffreys,
I will hang them up together on one rope when I return, for allowing you
to be so horribly disturbed....

If we are in Orchard Street together again, you shall put the Psyche [a
fine cast of the Neapolitan truncated statue given to Mr. Hamilton, Mrs.
Fitzhugh's brother, by the King of Naples] in whatever light you please;
but, as I am certain not to return to London till the third week in
November, if then, I feel as if, when I get back to Orchard Street, I
should have nothing to do but pack up my things preparatory to removing
to King Street, where I hope to get Mrs. Humphreys to receive me until I
leave England.

I shall certainly not be six weeks in Orchard Street when I return, and
the Psyche will desert the drawing-room when I do, and resume her post
on the staircase, where she always seemed to me to look down on dear
Mrs. Fitzhugh's morning visitors, as they came up the stairs, with a
divinely mild severity of expression, as if she felt the bore about to
be inflicted by their presence on the inmates of her house, the mortals
under her heavenly care.

You ought to find two letters from me at Bannisters, for I have
directed two to you there. How I wish I could be with you and dear
Emily! Give my love to her, and believe me

Ever yours,
FANNY.

[I was at this time occupying my friend Mrs. Fitzhugh's house in
Orchard Street, Portman Square, which I rented for a twelvemonth
from her. It was a convenient small house in an excellent situation,
and one whole side of the drawing-room was covered with a clever
painting, by Mr. Fitzhugh, of the bay and city of Naples--a pleasant
object of contemplation in London winter days.]

GLASGOW, October 12th.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I should very much wish that you would give me one of Loyal's children
[a fine Irish retriever of my friend's]; but do not again end any letter
to me so abruptly, without even signing your name, because it gives me a
most uncomfortable notion that I have not got all you have written, that