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Florence Decr 29th 1838-

My Dear Mother

I have commenced this in the hope that in a week or two I shall be able to get through with it, but realy you must not expect to hear very often or have very long letters from me, having all the care of the two little ones, it takes pretty much all my time to attend to them, & the house affairs so that I have not much time even to write. As for my sewing, now the days are so short, I do but very little and the poor creatures here work for such a trifle I have concluded to put all out that I can, but there is some things however which you know I can not do so with, such as mending & the like. My eyes have been quite weak since I was confined so much so that Hiram forbid my sewing or reading as little as possible, on this account, as the air of Florence is dangerous for persons that their eyes are any way inclined to weakness, it seems to me that one sixth of the population here are blind and they being the only licenced beggars her you are assailed in every quarter for alms, a peice of money which they call a quattrini here, will satisfy them and that is not in worth more than one quarter of our cent. My health never was better, and I am getting so fat that all my clothes which I brought with me are much too small. My traveling dress (that you will remember I had made some time before leaving), I got out the other day to give to my mantua maker to cut a dress by when to my astonishment it would not meet within a finger and a half. I hope I shall not get any more so, as I wish to wear back the same dress I wore away. I am thankfull I feel so much more contented than I did, when I first went to house keeping I thought I should never endure it, every thing was so new to me - but now I will not leave it off if I can only keep the servant which I have. She is very good in all respects save one - she is a married woman and plays some very sly tricks on her husband - but our friends tell us the women are all alike in that respect from the highest to the lowest, so we shall have to put up with it. She has quite a good looking fellow for her husband, he is a blacksmith and doing a very good business for one of the lower order - a while ago we had some wood to be sawed and told her to get some one to do it - she did so - and when we saw the man we were astonished to see what a fine looking fellow he was - dressed well with his watch & guard chain around his neck and realy had I seen him in the street I should have taken him for a nobleman & Hiram says if he was in America and was to bow to the greatest men there he would receive as low a bow as he gave. Well he sawed the wood and was paid for it, and in about two weeks after (one Sunday morning about 5 oclock) we heard a terrible noise in the street, I wanted Hiram to look out and see what was the matter, but he not thinking it was any thing that concerned us would not get up, so we went to sleep again and in a couple of hours our woman burst into our room in a great flurry, and asked us some thing which we misunderstood & answered 'yes' when in she walked this same fellow to hide him from him from her husband, who had been here and caught him in the house with his wife. We were somewhat alarmed when we saw a great man coming through our room before we were up - she wanted to put him in a room that was beyond ours to keep her husband from catching him. It seems that Nicolini 

Transcription Notes:
quattrino/i- old italian currency Second line below first crease done