?

Ever yours,
FANNY.

THE HOO, WELWYN, HERTS, December, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

... God knows I am admonished to patience, both by my own helplessness
and the inefficiency of those who, it seems to me, ought to be able to
help me....

Doubtless, my father reasonably regrets the independence which I might
by this time have earned for myself in my profession, and feels anxious
about my unprovided future. I have written to Chorley, the only person I
know to whom I can apply on the subject, to get me some means of
publishing the few manuscript verses I have left in some magazine or
other.... If I cannot succeed in this, I shall try if I can publish my
"English Tragedy," and make a few pounds by it. It is a wretchedly
uncomfortable position, but compared with all that has gone before it is
_only_ uncomfortable.

I came down here yesterday, and found, though the night was rainy and
extremely cold, dear Lord Dacre and B---- standing out on the door-step
to receive me. She has grown tall, and stout, and very handsome.... Is
it not wonderful that the spirit of life should be potent enough ever to
make us forget the death perpetually hovering over and ready to pounce
upon us? and yet how little dread, habitually, disturbs us, either for
ourselves or others, lying all the time, as we do, within the very grasp
of doom! Lord Dacre is looking well; my friend Lady Dacre is grown more
deaf and much broken. Poor thing! she has had a severe trial, in the
premature loss of those dearest to her....

God bless you, dear Hal. Good-by. Love to dear Dorothy.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

THE HOO, WELWYN, December 6th, 1845.
MY DEAREST HAL,

I have been spending the greater part of the morning in sitting for my
likeness to a young girl here, a Miss E----, daughter of some old
friends of the Dacres, whose talent for drawing, and especially for
taking likenesses, is uncommon.

That which Lawrence pronounced the most difficult task he ever undertook
could hardly prove an easy one to a young lady artist, who has, however,
succeeded in giving a very sufficient likeness of one of my faces; and I
think it so pretty that I am charmed with it, as indeed I always have
been with every likene