reading to S----, and it is now time for
me to dress for dinner.

Adelaide and I dined _tete-a-tete_ to-day; my father dined with Miss
Cottin. I have refused, because it is Sunday; Adelaide, because she is
lazy; but she means to make the effort to go in the evening, and I shall
go to bed early, and very glad I shall be to shut up shop, for this has
been a very heavy day. How well nurses ought to be paid!

God bless you, dear Harriet.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, Tuesday, December 28th, 1841.
MY DEAREST HARRIET,

I wrote you two long letters from Bowood, and one crossed note since I
came back to town; yet in a letter I get from you this morning you ask
me when your letters are "coming to the top" [of my packet of "my
letters to be answered," to which I always replied in the succession in
which they reached me]; at which, I confess, I feel not a little
dismayed. However, it is to be hoped that you will get them sooner or
later, and that, in this world or the next, you will discover that I
wrote to you two such letters, at such a time....

How can you ask me if I _play fair_ with my letters? Are you not sure
that I do? and, whatever may be the case with my better qualities, are
not my follies substantial, reliable, consistent, constant follies, that
are pretty sure to be found where you left them?

Good-bye, my dearest Harriet. I am terribly out of spirits, but it is
near bed-time, and the day will soon be done....

God bless you, dear. Give my kindest love to Dorothy. I am thinking of
your return with earnest longing.... As we passed the evening at the Hen
and Chickens, in the same room where I began reading you "Les Maitres
Mosaistes," on our return through Birmingham from the lately formed
association, your image was naturally very vivid in our memories.

I am ever yours,
FANNY.

HARLEY STREET, December 28th, 1841.
DEAREST GRANNY,

[This was an affectionate nickname that my friend Lady Dacre assumed
towards me, and by which I frequently addressed her], I do not mean this
time to tax your forgiveness of injuries quite so severely as before,
though you really have such a pretty knack of generosity that it's a
pity not to give you an opportunity o