very glad that he
cares no more than you tell me.

Still you go down-stairs, and still return safely, and every step
leads us nearer to _my_ 'hope.' How unremittingly you bless me--a
visit promises a letter, a letter brings such news, crowns me with
such words, and speaks of another visit--and so the golden links
extend. Dearest words, dearest letters--as I add each to my heap, I
say--I _do_ say--'I was _poor_, it now seems, a minute ago, when I had
not _this_!' Bless you, dear, dear Ba. On Saturday I shall be with
you, I trust--may God bless you! Ever your own

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

Sunday.
[Post-mark, March 16, 1846.]

Ever dearest I am going to say one word first of all lest I should
forget it afterward, of the two or three words which you said
yesterday and so passingly that you probably forget to-day having said
them at all. We were speaking of Mr. Chorley and his house, and you
said that you did not care for such and such things for yourself, but
that for others--now you remember the rest. And I just want to say
what it would have been simpler to have said at the time--only not so
easy--(I _couldn't_ say it at the time) that you are not if you please
to fancy that because I am a woman I have not the pretension to do
with as little in any way as you yourself ... no, it is not _that_ I
mean to say.... I mean that you are not, if you please, to fancy that,
because I am a woman, I look to be cared for in those outside things,
or should have the slightest pleasure in any of them. So never wish
nor regret in your thoughts to be able or not to be able to care this
and this for _me_; for while you are thinking so, our thoughts go
different ways, which is wrong. Mr. Fox did me a great deal too much
honour in calling me 'a religious hermit'; he was 'curiously' in
fault, as you saw. It is not my vocation to sit on a stone in a
cave--I was always too fond of lolling upon sofas or in chairs nearly
as large,--and this, which I sit in, was given to me when I was a
child by my uncle, the uncle I spoke of to you once, and has been
lolled in nearly ever since ... when I was well enough. Well--_that_
is a sort of luxury, of course--but it is more idle than expensive, as
a habit, and I do believe that it is the 'head and foot of my
offending' in that matter. Yes--'confiteor tibi' besides, that I do
hate white dimity curtains, which is highly improper for a religious