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 sofas enough for our guests to sit down. Nothing can be more fatiguing I should suppose to all parties concerned. Fanny and I, with our best intentions, cannot speak to more than four people at once. It is a tiresome job altogether—those mornings at home; but, after all, it only lasts two hours, and it keeps the rest of the week so cool and comfortable. That is a great comfort to me here, the number of hours I can pass alone without any fear of being called down. We breakfast at nine, and dawdle about the hall for a quarter of an hour, reading the papers, and doing a little civility to the household; then Fanny and I go to the drawing-room and work and write till twelve, when I go up to my own room, and read and write till two. Fanny stays downstairs, as she likes it better than her own room. I do my shopping, too, at this hour; the natives come with work, and silks, and anything they think they have a chance of selling, and sometimes one picks up a tempting article in the way of work. At two we all meet for luncheon, and George brings with him anybody who may happen to be doing business with him at the time. Fanny generally pays a visit, and I pay George a short one after luncheon,