d Emily,
even in this lovely home of hers, from which a doom, ever at hand, has
threatened to expel her every day of these four years.... In spite of
separation, distance, time, and the event which stands night and day at
her door, threatening to drive her forth from this beloved home, here we
are again together, enjoying each other's fellowship in these familiar
beautiful scenes: walking, driving, riding, and living together, as we
have twice been permitted to do before, as we are now allowed to do
again, to the confusion of all the depressing doubts which have
prevented this fair prospect from ever rising before my eyes with the
light of hope upon it--so little chance did there seem of its ever being
realized.

Emily and I rode to Netley Abbey yesterday, and looked at the pillar on
which your name and ours were engraved with so many tears before my last
return to America. If I had had a knife, I would have rewritten the
record, at least deepened it; but, indeed, it seems of little use to do
so while the soft, damp breath of the air suffices to efface it from the
stone, and while every stone of the beautiful ruin is a memento to each
one of us of the other two, and the place will be to all time haunted by
our images, and by thoughts as vivid as bodily presences to the eyes of
whichever of us may be there without the others....

Our plans are assuming very definite shape, and you will probably be
glad to hear that there is every prospect of our spending another year
in England, inasmuch as we are at this moment in treaty for a house
which we think of taking with my father for that time. My sister has
concluded an extremely agreeable and advantageous engagement with Covent
Garden, for a certain number of nights, at a very handsome salary. This
is every way delightful to me; it keeps her in England, among her
friends, and in the exercise of her profession; it places her where she
will meet with respect and kindness, both from the public and the
members of the profession with whom she will associate. Covent Garden is
in some measure our vantage-ground, and I am glad that she should thence
make her first appeal to an English audience.

Our new house (if we get it) is in Harley Street, close to Cavendish
Square, and has a room for you, of course, dearest Harriet; and you will
come and see my sister's first appearance, and stay with me next winter,
as you did last. Our more immediate plans stand thus: we leave this
sweet a