Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/200

176 Detmerings and Haussmann, with whom it will be a great pleasure to me to renew my acquaintance. You have heard, I daresay, through my mother, of our poor friend, Miss Deluc's death. Mrs. Beckedorff will have been much grieved at it.

I hope you have not forgotten your English, as I find myself not quite so fluent in this language as I expected. In fact, since leaving Italy, I have so begarbled my German with Italian that it is unintelligible both to myself and to everyone that hears it; and what is very perverse, that though when in Italy I could hardly talk Italian fit to be heard, I can now talk nothing else, and whenever I want a German word, pop comes the Italian one in its place. I made the waiter to-day stare (he being a Frenchman) by calling to him, "Wollen Sie avere la bontà den acete zu apportaren!" But this, I hope, will soon wear off.

I remain, dear aunt, Your affectionate nephew,

H, Sept 25, 1824. 2em I hardly know how to thank you sufficiently for your valuable letters, especially for the one dated the 17th of this month, as I am now at last assured that my eyes shall once more behold the continuation of your dear father. For the remaining days of my life can only by a few hours' conversation with you be made tolerable, by affording me your direction how to finish a general catalogue of the 2,500 nebulæ, &c., which would have otherwise caused us both a tedious and vexatious correspondence in the future.

I anxiously forbore to express my wishes for seeing you,