To the Countess of Darnley.
“Hotel d’Italie, Rome, March 30, 1892.—I think you will have wondered what has become of me, and that you will like to know.
“I have been abroad since November 16, beginning by a week at Paris with George Jolliffe, who was very ill then, and a month spent at Cannes in visits to the De Wesselows, old friends of my Hurstmonceaux childhood; and to my old schoolfellow Fred Walker and his nice wife, one of the few people I know who have seen two separate and undoubted ghosts with their own eyes. How civilised and be-villa’d Cannes is now, almost the least pretentious house remaining in it being the little Villa Nevada, where the Duke of Albany died, which was close to us, and which was so often visited by ‘Madame d’Angleterre,’ as the people of Cannes call our Queen. My ever-kindest of hosts were more people-seeking than place-seeing. We had one delightful picnic, however, at the old deserted villa of Castellaras, looking upon the blue gorge of the Saut de Loup. A little suspicion of earthquake remained in the air from the alarm of the last shock, when my friends’ native housemaid had refused to leave the window, saying, ‘Puisque le dernier jour est arrivé, je veux avoir les yeux partout, pour voir ce que se passe!’ Here at Rome there was a smart shock this spring. Our old friend Miss Garden asked her ‘donna’ if she was frightened. ‘Oh yes,’ she said; ‘I felt the two walls of my little room press in upon my bed. I knew what it was. But I could not remember which was the right saint to pray to in an earthquake. So I just prayed to my own grandmother, for she was the best person I ever knew, and immediately I heard the voice of my grandmother, who said, “Don’t be frightened; it will all pass; no harm will come to you.” So then I was quite calm and satisfied.’ Might not this incident account for many stories of Catholic saints?
“I spent a week at Bordighera. Such varied points for walks! villages like Sasso, which are just bright bits of umber colour amongst the tender grey olives; little painted towns amongst the orange-gardens, like Dolceacqua, with its pointed bridge and blue river and great deserted palace of the Dorias. George Macdonald, a most grand old patriarch to look upon, is king of the place. He writes constantly, and never leaves the house, except to see a neighbour in need of help or comfort. One after another of his delicate daughters has faded away, but his sons seem strong and well, and there are several adopted children in the house, half in and half out of the family, but all calling Mrs. Macdonald ‘Mama.’ It is a very unusual household, but ruled in a spirit of love which is most beautiful. I dined with them, the dining-table placed across one end of the vast common sitting-room. On Sunday evenings he gives a sort of Bible lecture, which all the sojourners in Bordighera may attend.
