Great Western Hotel, Bristol, Monday, May 31st.
My dear Hal,
Go to Atkinson's and Co., 31, College Green, Dublin, and Pay £8 13s. for my sister, and get a receipt for it, and send it to me, and do this just as fast as ever you love me—that is, this very minute. I will repay you when we meet, or as much sooner as you may wish.
I have this morning received a note of eleven lines from Rome from Adelaide, without one single word of anything in it but a desire that I will immediately pay this debt for her; not a syllable about her husband, her children, herself, or any created thing, but Messrs. Atkinson and Co., and £8 13s. Therefore do what she bids me, and I ask you "right away," as the Americans say, that I may send this afflicted soul her receipt, and bid her be at rest.
That they are still in Rome I know only by the address, which she does put, though not the date; as a compensation for which, however, she heads her letter with the sum she wishes me to pay, thus—
Rome, [Trinita] dei Monti.
£8 13s.
—a new way of dating a letter, it strikes me. She must have had poplin on the brain.
I wrote to you yesterday, my dear, and therefore have little to say to you. After all, I had directed my poor maid perfectly write! (look how I've spelt this, in the tumult of my feelings and confusion of my thoughts!), and she arrived, but not till three o'clock in the afternoon, paper in hand, with the direction I had myself written as large as life—"The Great Western Hotel, Bristol." The fact is that I had made so sure that she would be here before I was, that, not finding her on my arrival, I made equally sure that I had misdirected her to Bath, and despatched one of the hotel porters thither to hunt for her, which he did, sans intermission, for two hours, and on his return had the pleasure of finding her here. What a capital thing a clear head is, to be sure! At least, I imagine so....
I have just come back from rehearsal at the theatre, where I found a letter from Emily, containing a bad account of her mother, and a most affectionate, cordial, illegible scrawl from poor dear old Mrs. Fitzhugh herself.
I also received a letter from Henry Greville, full of strictures upon my carriage and deportment on the stage, and earnestly entreating me to suffer his coiffeur ("a clean, tidy foreigner") to whitewash me after the approved French method, i.e., to anoint my skin with cold cream, and then cover it with pearl powder; and this, not only my face, but my arms, neck, and shoulders. Don't you see me undergoing such a process, and submitting to such "manipulation"?