Dear Mary Novello,—Your letter was a very great pleasure to us indeed, though it made us very impatient to be in the midst of our friends. We are like Mahomet’s coffin at present, suspended between our two attractions; but the ship will carry us off in April, and turn us again into living creatures. No: it is you and Novello who must revive us meanwhile. Do you know, I was going to ask you to come down here, and see us once more before we go; but I was afraid you would think there was no end of my presuming upon your regards. Guess, however, what pleasure your own intimation gave us. You must fulfil it, now you have given it. No excuse—no sort of excuse. Novello must tear himself from all the boarding-school ladies, let them lay hold of the flaps of his coat never so Potipharically. There are, as you say, stages, waggons, carts, trucks, wheelbarrows, &c.:—there are also kind hearts in stout bodies: and finally, our direction is, Mrs. L’Amoureux, Devil’s Point, Stonehouse, Plymouth, Devonshire.
You see the way we are in, in this Devon of a county. Then there
are the Devonshire creams, too good; Mount Edgecombe here close at our elbow
looking like a Hampstead in the sea; boats and smooth harbours to sail about in;
the finest air in England, with a little bit of the South of Europe in it; all
sorts of naval curiosities; sunshine every day, and moonlight too, just now, every
night; and finally, dear friends, who want the society of dear friends to
strengthen them through their cares and delays. I must not forget, that the road
between London and Plymouth is said to be excellent, and that there is a
safety-coach just set up, which boasts itself to be worthy of the road. So we shall
expect you in the course of the week,—mind that I shall expect a letter too,
to arrive just before you. You must send it off on Monday evening, and follow it
with all your might and muscles. At least Novello must do so. I forgot, that ladies have no
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