on as I fain
would. I assure you I am stuffed as hard as a cricket ball with the work
of every day, and I have waited in vain for a clear hour to write
quietly and comfortably to you, in order to say how your letter touched
me, dear dear friend. You always understand. Your sympathy stretches
_beyond_ points of agreement, which is so rare and so precious, and
makes one feel so unspeakably grateful....

London has emptied itself, as you may suppose, by this time. Mrs. Ormus
Biddulph was so kind as to wish us to dine with them on Monday (to-day),
but we found it absolutely impossible. The few engagements we make we
don't keep, and I shall try for the future to avoid perjury. As it is, I
have no doubt that various people have set me down as 'full of arrogance
and assumption,' at which the gods must laugh, for really, if truths
could be known, I feel even morbidly humble just now, and could show my
sackcloth with anybody's sackcloth. But it is difficult to keep to the
conventions rigidly, and return visits to the hour, and hold engagements
to the minute, when one has neither carriage, nor legs, nor time at
one's disposal, which is my case. If I don't at once answer (for
instance) such a letter as you sent me, I must be a beggar....

May God bless you both, my very dear friends! My husband bids me
remember him to you in cordial regard. I long to see you, and to hear
(first) that you are well.

Dearest Mrs. Martin's ever attached
BA.

* * * * *

_To Mrs. Martin_

13 Dorset Street: Tuesday, [October 1855].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I can't go without writing to you, but I am
ground down with last things to do on last days, and it must be a word
only. Dearest friend, I have waited morning after morning for a clear
half-hour, because I didn't like to do your bidding and write briefly,
though now, after all, I am reduced to it. We leave England to-morrow,
and shall sleep (D.V.) at 102 _Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St. Germain,
Paris_,--I am afraid in a scarcely convenient apartment, which a zealous
friend, in spite of our own expressed opinion, secured for us for the
term of six months, because of certain yellow satin furniture which only
she could consider 'worthy of us.' We shall probably have to dress on
the staircase, but what matter? There's the yellow satin to fall back
upon.

If the rooms are not tenable, we must underlet them, or try....

One of the pleasantest things which has hap