with leaves and musical with birds' nests, and a fairy
safeguard and blessing thenceforward and for ever, when the foolish
baton had been broken into ounces of gold, even if gold it _were_, and
spent and vanished: for, he said, such gold lies in the highway, men
pick it up, more of it or less; but this one slip of the flowering
tree is all of it on this side Paradise. Whereon he laid it to his
heart and was happy--in spite of his disastrous chase the night
before, when so far from catching an unicorn, he saw not even a
respectable prize-heifer, worth the oil-cake and rape-seed it had
doubtless cost to rear her--'insolence!'

I found no opportunity of speaking to Mr. K. about Monday, but nothing
was said of last Wednesday, and he must know I did not go yesterday.
So, Monday is laughing in sunshine surely! Bless you, my sweetest. I
love you with my whole heart; ever shall love you.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

[Post-mark, February 24, 1846.]

Ever dearest, it is only when you go away, when you are quite gone,
out of the house and the street, that I get up and think properly, and
with the right gratitude of your flowers. Such beautiful flowers you
brought me this time too! looking like summer itself, and smelling!
Doing the 'honour due' to the flowers, makes your presence a little
longer with me, the sun shines back over the hill just by that time,
and then drops, till the next letter.

If I had had the letter on Saturday as ought to have been, no, I could
_not_ have answered it so that you should have my answer on
Sunday--no, I should still have had to write first.

Now you understand that I do not object to the writing first, but only
to the hearing second. I would rather write than not--I! But to be
written to is the chief gladness of course; and with all you say of
liking to have my letters (which I like to hear quite enough indeed)
you cannot pretend to think that _yours_ are not more to _me_, most to
_me_! Ask my guardian-angel and hear what he says! Yours will look
another way for shame of measuring joys with him! Because as I have
said before, and as he says now, you are all to me, all the light, all
the life; I am living for you now. And before I knew you, what was I
and where? What was the world to me, do you think? and the meaning of
life? And now, when you come and go, and write and do not write, all
the hours are chequered accordingly in so many squares of white and
black, as if f