Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/665

Rh up some foils. The Triestines think us as mad as hatters to come up here, on account of the weather, which is 'seasonable'—bora, snow, and frozen fingers. I am interesting myself in the two hundred and twenty badly behaved Slav children in the village. Dick's Lusiads are making a stir. My Indian sketches and our Oberammergau have gone to the bad. My publisher, as I told you, took to evil ways, failed, and eventually died December 10. However, I hope to rise like a phoenix out of my ashes. The rest of our week is passed in fencing three times a week, twice a week Italian, twice a week German. Friday I receive the Trieste world from twelve noon to 6 p.m., with accompaniments of Arab coffee, cigarettes, and liqueurs. Dick is always grinding at literature as usual; so what with helping Dick (we are studying something together), literature, looking after the little ménage, and philanthropic business, Church work, the animals, and the poor, I am very happy and busy, and I think stronger; albeit I have little rest or amusement, according to the doctor's ideas. In fact I have a winter I love, a quiet Darby and Joan by our own fireside, which I so seldom get.

The principal event at Trieste in 1 88 1 appears to have been the arrival of the British squadron in July. Burton and his wife were always of a most hospitable nature; they would have spent their last penny in entertaining their friends. The first thing they did on the arrival of the squadron was to invite the captains and officers of every ship to an evening fête champêtre