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.