nd lakes is itself a trying thing to us poor
prisoners. Papa has talked several times of taking us into the country
for two months this summer, and we have dreamt of it a hundred times
in addition; but, after all, we are not likely to go I dare say. It
would have been very delightful--and who knows what may take place
next summer? We may not absolutely _die_, without seeing a tree.
Henrietta has seen a great many. You will have heard, I dare say, of
the enjoyment she had in her week at Camden House. She seems to have
walked from seven in the morning to seven at night; and was quite
delighted with the kindness within doors and the sunshine without. I
assure you that, fresh as she was from the air and dew, she saluted us
amidst the sentiment of our sisterly meeting just in this way--it was
almost her first exclamation--'What a very disagreeable smell there is
here!' And this, although she had brought geraniums enough from Camden
to perfume the Haymarket!...

I am happy to announce to you that a new little dove has appeared
from a shell--over which nobody had prognosticated good--on August
16, 1837. I and the senior doves appear equally delighted, and we
all three, in the capacity of good sitters and indefatigable
pullers-about, take a good deal of credit upon ourselves....

Arabel has begun oil painting, and without a master--and you can't
think how much effect and expression she has given to several of her
own sketches, notwithstanding all difficulties. Poor Henrietta is
without a piano, and is not to have one again _until we have another
house_! This is something like 'when Homer and Virgil are forgotten.'
_Speaking of Homer and Virgil_, I have been writing a 'Romance of the
Ganges,'[34] in order to illustrate an engraving in the new annual
to be edited by Miss Mitford, Finden's tableaux for 1838. It does not
sound a _very_ Homeric undertaking--I confess I don't hold any kind of
annual, gild it as you please, in too much honour and awe--but from
my wish to please her, and from the necessity of its being done in a
certain time, I was 'quite frightful,' as poor old Cooke used to
say, in order to express his own nervousness. But she was quite
pleased--she is very soon pleased--and the ballad, gone the way of
all writing, now-a-days, to the press. I do wish I could send you some
kind of news that would interest you; but you see scarcely any except
all this selfishness is in my beat. Dearest Bro draws and reads
German, and