Hotel Bristol Rome [Roma] Friday. Dearest Mother. I must send you my congratulations upon the prosperity of the play. I wonder whether you will make many changes in the cast - some of the parts I suppose will still be played by the same people. I have decided to stay on here another week with Eugénie. I have got a very nice room in her pension. But I shall miss Father dreadfully. We have had the most enchanting ten days together and I hope he has enjoyed them as much as I have. He is such an ideal companion. With the archaeologists he is in his element and he disconcerts the learned by extremely pertinent questions! but they are all delighted with him and I think he puts them upon their metal and that they are far more interesting when he is there. We have made several bosom friends. One is a nice plain little American woman who is studying brickwork - we considered every separate brick in the Forum with her one morning and it was certainly most interesting. I love too, the head of the German School, Dr Delbrück. He is extraordinarily able. We are going to spend a long morning together on Thursday in his library and discuss vaults. But our chief friends are the dear Wyndhams who are darlings both of them. Robert Hichens turned up at my lecture this afternoon - oh, I think the lecture went quite well and I had a very distinguished audience of professors. Dr Ashby, the head of the British School, spends his time in trotting round with us and we are generally accompanied by a young Italian, Baron Blanc, whose subject is chiefly prehistoric objects. As for the Rodos, they leave me quite cold. They are very kind and nice and yet I can't feel to want to see more of them and I don't know why. We lunch with the Teanos tomorrow and dine with the Filippis - the latter engagement is not very exciting. Teano has plunged into modern politics, which I gather he does very ill - it's an immense pity that he should leave what he does so well and I fear the great book will suffer. He came to my lecture and spoke after it. So did the Ambassador. You shee [sic] no Ambassadors come when I lecture in London.
Well, it's all being quite as amusing as we meant it to be. Father is very well and I don't think he has been too much run off his feet. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude