as comfortably as a tit. It will stand nicely on your table without
upsetting, and is so comfortable to hold, and altogether I'm pleased
to have got it for you.

* * * * *

BRANTWOOD, _1st March, 1886_.

Yes, I knew you would like that silver shrine! and it _is_ an
extremely rare and perfect specimen. But you need not be afraid in
handling it; if the little bit of spar does come off it, or out of it,
no matter.

But of course nobody else should touch it, till you give them leave,
and show them how.

I am sorry for poor Miss Brown, and for your not having known the
Doctor. He should have come here when I told him. I believe he would
have been alive yet, and I never should have been ill.

* * * * *

I believe you know more Latin than I do, and can certainly make more
delightful use of it.

Your mornings' ministry to the birds must be remembered for you by the
angels who paint their feathers. They will all, one day, be birds of
Paradise, and say, when the adverse angel accuses you of being naughty
to _some_ people, "But we were hungry and she gave us corn, and took
care that nobody else ate it."

I am indeed thankful you are better. But you must please tell me what
the thing was I said which gave you so much pain. Do you recollect
also what the little bit in "Proserpina" was that said so much to you?
Were you not thinking of "Fors"?

* * * * *

I am very thankful for all your dear letters always--greatly delighted
above all with the squirrel one, and Chaucer. Didn't he love
squirrels![39] and don't I wish I was a squirrel in Susie's pear trees,
instead of a hobbling disconsolate old man, with no teeth to bite,
much less crack, anything, and particularly forbidden to eat nuts!

[Footnote 39:

"And many squireles, that sett
Ful high upon the trees and ete
And in his maner made festys."
"The Dethe of Blaunche," 430.]

* * * * *

Your precious letter, showing me you are a little better, came this
morning, with the exquisite feathers, one, darker and lovelier than
any I have seen, but please, I still want one not in the least
flattened; all these have lost just the least bit of their shell-like
bending. You can so easily devise a little padding to keep two strong
cards or bits of wood separate for o