23d October 1815. P.A.
Yes my darling, get the musick bound, list and all if you choose: but I think you had better leave the selection of pieces to Mrs. Grelaud. You see what a good humor your pair of letters have put me in. What reasonable request could my child make that I wou’d not grant? None. I am in a most amazing suave mood. You are well, happy, and industrious and I also am pretty well, tolerably happy and excessively industrious. But were I to undertake to calculate the number, and to note the variety of my vocations it wou’d go near to puzzle my arithmetic. The most agreeable piece of business I am at present engaged in is the working your most amiable ruffle, half of which is accomplish’d in high taste; and if you are very attentive to your French and musick, and will sing me and play me a French song the next time we meet. I don’t know whether I shall not prick my fingers to the quick in working you a pelerine yet more astonishing than the ruffle.
I am now every day looking for your