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Francesca my darling,
In the train coming back Parthenope wanted to smell my tobacco. She said she did not like it. I said, in tones of surprise, Don't you? She said, No; but then of course I am a woman! As she was utterly serious she could not understand the sensation this caused among the other passengers.
… I fixed up with Brown's Hotel as I told you. I think it was the best arrangement and though expensive I felt we had avoided extravagance on the one hand and on the other the sort of parsimony that can make people feel that an occasion that should be happy and is important, has been turned into a rather uneasy congregation of people wondering if they ought not to club together to provide money
for a couple who have hit on this method of raising the wind. I don't think any but the most uncharitable would think either extreme had been achieved: and let us hope none of them would be present …