As I am reading about the scandalous love affair in Naples and Palermo two centuries ago between Horatio Nelson, the great British admiral, and Emma Hamilton, the wife of the British envoy to the King of Naples, I am mindful of a ladybug that keeps crawling all over my book and my fingers, occasionally taking short flights around the lamp above me, only to return a moment later. As I write, it is on my notebook. Well, it just crawled up the thumb on my left hand. All the while I am thinking of the ways to feed it, water it, and make it otherwise happy in my home. But there are three whole months till spring! No matter what I do, my little companion is surely doomed. Perhaps this is but an emotional farewell? Oh, the poor thing almost got under my pen…