Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 56

To MISS HONORA EDGEWORTH.

BLACK CASTLE, Sept. 3, 1826.

Thank you for wishing to be with me, but I am sure it will be better for you to be at the sea. Here, though I am obliged to think of actual business between-times, I have every motive and means for diversion for myself, both on my own account and on my aunt's. We run in and out, and laugh and talk nonsense; and every little thing amuses us together: the cat, the dog, the hog, Mr. Barry, or a parachute blown from the dandelion.

Nov. 19.

Bess Fitzherbert has written an entertaining letter to Mrs. Barry, in which she mentions one of the dishes they had just had at dinner at Pozzo, between Modena and Bologna: cold boiled eels, with preserved pears, a toothpick or skewer stuck in each to take them up by, instead of a fork. My aunt's friend, Madame Boschi, near Bologna, offered to send a garden-chair drawn by bullocks for Bess, the road not being passable for common cattle.