Croix de Malte Genova
Sunday 3^d of May

My dear Papa,

Your letters to Ela ^<1> & me from Paris are just arrived, and in order to save the last post of this evening I have to scribble in a dreadful hurry. Had you told us before where to write you should have had a tidier letter. We also received the two you wrote from London. Mama ^<2> is, I am glad to say, much better than when I wrote last – and has been out driving three times, but still she is very weak and has to be treated with great care and precaution. We are hoping to be able very soon to fix a day for our departure, but the great difficulty is that she cannot bear the fatigue of more than a very short journey each day; not above three hours; so you must be prepared to find us still very slow and tedious in our movements.

Are you not going to see Aunt Caroline ^<3>&c at Cannes?… She could not bear that you should go through without stopping. I am glad you spend a day at Mentone, and also at S. Remo, where be sure you make acquaintance with the Apothecary, Panizzi ^<4> he is quite a remarkable man, a great botanist and is proud to show his collections of funguses and plants. You must show us where to find the orchises here, but I fear, as you say, they are all built over. It has become extremely hot, which you will feel very much from the sudden change since you crossed the channel.

Thank you for the pieces of Times, we had had the news, of course, in Galignani, but not that article.

I have not a moment more, so good bye, dear Papa, untill we meet,

Your affectionate daughter
Rosamond

If Goodwin ^<5> has time ask him to buy a little nice flat straw hat, for a child of six year’s old – (for Connie ^<6>) if he can find one lined with blue they are prettiest. There were a great many to be had at Mentone when we passed, but perhaps all are sold now. He can make a paper parcel of it –

[envelope:]
Monsieur Talbot
poste restante
Bagni di Lucca

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Notes:

1. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1^st daughter.

2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.

3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.

4. Sir Anthonio Genesio Maria Panizzi (1797–1879), British Museum Librarian.

5. George Goodwin (d. 1875), footman at Lacock Abbey.

6. Constance Stewart, née Gilchrist-Clark (b. 1863), ‘Connie’, WHFT’s Scottish granddaughter.