Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/198

 little black spot in the pearl, and the assertion is that insects, which form the other pearls, come and creep out there. Look if yours have any black spots; if they have, keep feeding them with rice.

I have not heard from you of your shawls, but R says you have them, and actually thought them large. Now yours were small of the kind; I hope you thought them handsome too, but now I want your letter about them. I am always wanting your letters about something, and yet you are a model of writing virtue. And your letters are not wasted; when I have read them, and George has read them, and Emily has read them, they are sent on to China, that may read them, with strict orders, however, that upon no account must Linn be allowed a sight of them. I should not like our great national and tea-making enemies the female Linns to know that they should wear sixteen breadths in their gowns; it would be such a convenience to them with their little feet; they would spread out their petticoats and let the wind blow them along.

The monsoon, as usual, is blowing the wrong way, and it will be a fortnight longer before we