x quantities of
old mortar and soil together, and to fill many crevices in your new
walls with it; then the breezes will bring fern seeds and plant them,
or rather sow them in such fashion as no human being can do. When time
and the showers brought by the west wind have mellowed it a little,
the tiny beginnings of mosses will be there. The sooner this can be
done the better. Do not think Susie presumptuous.

We have hot sun and a _very_ cool air, which I do not at all like.

I hope your visit to Palermo and your lady have been all that you
could wish. Please _do_ write to me; it would do me so much good and
so greatly refresh me.

This poor little letter is scarcely worth sending, only it says that I
am your loving Susie.

* * * * *

_14th May._

MY DEAREST FRIEND,--Your letter yesterday did me so much good, and
though I answered it at once, yet here I am again. A kind woman from
the other side has sent me the loveliest group of drooping and very
tender ferns, soft as of some velvet belonging to the fairies, and of
the most exquisite green, and primroses, and a slender stalked white
flower, and so arranged, that they continually remind me of that
enchanting group of yours in Vol. 3, which you said I might cut out.
What would you have thought of me if I had? Oh, that you would and
could sketch this group--or even that your eye could rest upon it! Now
you will laugh if I ask you whether harpies[49] ever increase in
number? or whether they are only the "old original." They quite
torment me when I open the window, and blow chaff at me. I suppose at
this moment, dearest Joanie is steaming away to Liverpool; one always
wants to know now whether people accomplish a journey safely. When the
blackbirds come for soaked bread, they generally eat a nice little lot
themselves, before carrying any away from the window for their little
ones; but Bobbie, "our little English Robin," has just been twice,
took none for himself, but carries beak-load after beak-load for his
speckled infants. How curious the universal love of bread is; so many
things like and eat it--even flies and snails!

You know you inserted a letter from Jersey about fish.[50]
A lady there tells me that formerly you might have a bucket
of oysters for sixpence and that now you can scarcely get
anything but such coarse kinds of fish as are not liked; and
she has a sister, a sad invalid, to who