Own Dearest: Come I did not think that you would, or mean that you should
seriously; for is it not a poor way of love to make the object of it cut
an absurd or partly absurd figure? I wrote only as a woman having a secret
on the tip of her tongue and the tips of her fingers, and full of a
longing to say it and send it.

Here it is at last: love me for it, I have worked so hard to get it done!
And you do not know why and what for? Beloved, it--_this_--is the
anniversary of the day we first met; and you have forgotten it already or
never remembered it:--and yet have been clamoring for "the letters"!

On the first anniversary of our marriage, _if you remember it_, you shall
have those same letters: and not otherwise. So there they lie safe till
doomsday!

The M.-A. has been very gracious and clear after her little outbreak of
yesterday: her repentances, after I have hurt her feelings, are so gentle
and sweet, they always fill me with compunction. Finding that I would go
on with the thing I was doing, she volunteered to come and read to me: a
requiem over the bone of contention which we had gnawed between us. Was
not that pretty and charitable? She read Tennyson's Life for a solid
hour, and continued it to-day. Isn't it funny that she should take up such
a book?--she who "can't abide" Tennyson or Browning or Shakespeare: only
likes Byron, I suppose because it was the right and fashionable liking
when she was young. Yet she is plodding through the Life religiously--only
skipping the verses. I have come across two little specimens of "Death and
the child" in it. His son, Lionel, was carried out in a blanket one night
in the great comet year, and waking up under the stars asked, "Am I dead?"
Number two is of a little girl at Wellington's funeral who saw his charger
carrying his _boots_, and asked, "Shall I be like that after I die?"

A queer old lady came to lunch yesterday, a great traveler, though lame
on two crutches. We carefully hid all guide-books and maps, and held our
peace about next month, lest she should insist on coming too: though I
think Nineveh was the place she was most anxious to go to, if the M.-A.
would consent to accompany her!

Good-by, dearest of one-year-old acquaintances! you, too, send your
blessing on the anniversary, now that my better memory has reminded you
of it! All that follow we will bless in company. I trust you are
one-half as happy as I am, my own, my own.

The letters? No, Beloved, I could not! Not yet. There you have caught me
where I own I am still shy of you.

A long time hence, when we are a safely wedded pair, you shall turn them
over. It _may_ be a short time; but I will keep them however long. Indeed
I must ever keep them; they talk to me of the dawn of my existence,--the
early light before our sun rose, when my love of you was growing and had
not yet reached its full.

If I disappoint you I will try to make up for it with something I wrote
long before I ever saw you. To-day I was turning over old things my mother
had treasured for me of my childhood--of days spent with her: things of
laughter as well as of tears; such a dear selection, so quaint and sweet,
with moods of her as I dimly remember her to have been. And among them was
this absurdity, written, and I suppose placed in the mouth of my stocking,
the Christmas I stayed with her in France. I remember the time as a great
treat, but nothing of this. "Nilgoes" is "Nicholas," you must understand!
How he must have laughed over me asleep while he read this!

     "Cher père Nilgoes. S'il vous plait voulez vous me donné
     plus de jeux que des oranges des pommes et des pombons parc
     que nous allons faire l'arbre de noel cette anné et les
     jeaux ferait mieux pour l'arbre de Noel. Il ne faut pas dire
     à petite mere s'il vous plait parce que je ne veut pas
     quelle sache sil vous voulez venir ce soir du ceil pour que
     vous pouvez me donner ce que je vous demande Dites bon jour
     á la St. Viearge est à l'enfant Jeuses et à Ste Joseph.
     Adieu cher St. Nilgoes."

I haven't altered the spelling, I love it too well, prophetic of a fault
I still carry about me. How strange that little bit of invocation to the
dear folk above sounds to me now! My mother must have been teaching me
things after her own persuasion; most naturally, poor dear one--though
that too has gone like water off my mind. It was one of the troubles
between her and my father: the compact that I was to be brought up a
Catholic was dissolved after they separated; and I am sorry, thinking it
unjust to her; yet glad, content with being what I am.

I must have been less than five when I penned this: I was always a
letter-writer, it seems.

It is a reproach now from many that I have ceased to be: and to them I
fear it is true. That I have not truly ceased, "witness under my hand
these presents,"--or whatever may be the proper legal terms for an
affidavit.

What were _you_ like, Beloved, as a very small child? Should I have loved
you from the beginning had we toddled to the rencounter; and would my love
have passed safely through the "gallous young hound" period; and could I
love you more now in any case, had I _all_ your days treasured up in my
heart, instead of less than a year of them?

How strangely much have seven miles kept our fates apart! It seems
uncharacteristic for this small world,--where meetings come about so far
above the dreams of average--to have played us such a prank.

This must do for this once, Beloved; for behold me busy to-day: with
_what_, I shall not tell you. I would like to put you to a test, as
ladies did their knights of old, and hardly ever do now--fearing, I
suppose, lest the species should altogether fail them at the pinch. I
would like to see if you could come here and sit with me from beginning
to end, _with your eyes shut_: never once opening them. I am not saying
whether I think curiosity, or affection, would make the attempt too
difficult. But if you were sure you could, you might come here
to-morrow--a day otherwise interdicted. Only know, having come, that if
you open those dear cupboards of vision and set eyes on things not yet
intended to be looked at, there will be confusion of tongues in this
Tower we are building whose top is to reach heaven. Will you come? I
don't _say_ "come"; I only want to know--will you?

To-day my love flies low over the earth like a swallow before rain, and
touching the tops of the flowers has culled you these. Kiss them until
they open: they are full of my thoughts, as the world, to me, is full of
you.

Now _why_, I want to know, Beloved, was I so specially "good" to you in my
last? I have been quite as good to you fifty times before,--if such a
thing can be from me to you. Or do you mean good _for_ you? Then, dear, I
must be sorry that the thing stands out so much as an exception!

Oh, dearest Beloved, for a little I think I must not love you so much,
or must not let you see it.

When does your mother return, and when am I to see her? I long to so
much. Has she still not written to you about our news?

I woke last night to the sound of a great flock of sheep going past. I
suppose they were going by forced marches to the fair over at Hylesbury:
It was in the small hours: and a few of them lifted up their voices and
complained of this robbery of night and sleep in the night. They were so
tired, so tired, they said: and so did the muffawully patter of their
poor feet. The lambs said most; and the sheep agreed with a husky
croak.

I said a prayer for them, and went to sleep again as the sound of the
lambs died away; but somehow they stick in my heart, those sad sheep
driven along through the night. It was in its degree like the woman
hurrying along, who said, "My God, my God!" that summer Sunday morning.
These notes from lives that appear and disappear remain endlessly; and I
do not think our hearts can have been made so sensitive to suffering we
can do nothing to relieve, without some good reason. So I tell you this,
as I would any sorrow of my own, because it has become a part of me, and
is underlying all that I think to-day.

I am to expect you the day after to-morrow, but "not for certain"? Thus
you give and you take away, equally blessed in either case. All the
same, I shall _certainly_ expect you, and be disappointed if on Thursday
at about this hour your way be not my way.

"How shall I my true love know" if he does not come often enough to see
me? Sunshine be on you all possible hours till we meet again.