king the seal. He said
he regretted to have been forced to keep them by him until now, through
his ignorance of where he should send them. So there's the end. I
cannot, of course, write again. God takes it all into His own hands, and
I wait.

We go on Tuesday. If I do not see you (as I scarcely hope to do now), it
will be only a gladness delayed for a few months. We shall meet in Paris
if we live. May God bless you both, dearest friends! I think of you and
love you. Dear Mr. Martin, don't stay too late in England this year, for
the climate seems to me worse than ever. Not that I have much cough
now--I am much better--but the quality of the atmosphere is unmistakable
to my lungs and air passages, and I believe it will be wise, on this
account, to go away quickly.

Your ever affectionate and grateful
BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_[2]

London: September 24, 1851.

My dear Miss Haworth,--I do hope you have not set us quite on the
outside of your heart with the unfeeling and ungrateful. I say 'us' when
I ought to have said 'me,' for you have known Robert, and you have not
known _me_, and I am naturally less safe with you than he is--less safe
in your esteem. We should both have gone to inquire after your health if
he had not been attacked with influenza, and unfit for anything until
the days you mentioned as the probable term of your remaining in town
had passed. I waited till he should be better, and the malady lingered.
Now he is well, and I do hope you may be so too. May it be! Bear us in
mind and love, for we go away to-morrow to Paris--where, however, we
shall _expect_ you before long. Thank you, thank you, for the books. I
have been struck and charmed with some things in the
'Companion'--especially, may I say, with the 'Modern Pygmalion,' which
catches me on my weak side of the _love of wonder_. By the way, what am
I to say of Swedenborg and mesmerism? So much I could--the books have so
drawn and held me (as far as I was capable of being drawn or held, in
this chaos of London)--that I will not speak at all. The note-page is
too small--the haste I write in, too great.

God bless you, and good bye. Robert bids me give you his love (of the
earnestest), and I have leave from you (have I not?) to be always
affectionately yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

The journey to Paris was effected at the end of September, and for abo