o
myself justice in your eyes--Let time show!

Perhaps I feel none the less sorely, when you 'thank' me for such
company as mine, that I cannot avoid confessing to myself that it
would not be so absolutely out of my power, perhaps, to contrive
really and deserve thanks in a certain acceptation--I _might_ really
_try_, at all events, and amuse you a little better, when I do have
the opportunity,--and I _do not_--but there is the thing! It is all of
a piece--I _do not_ seek your friendship in order to do you good--any
good--only to do myself good. Though I _would_, God knows, do that
too.

Enough of this.

I am much better, indeed,--but will certainly follow your advice
should the pain return. And you--you have tried a new journey from
your room, have you not?

Do recollect, at any turn, any chance so far in my favour,--that I am
here and yours should you want any fetching and carrying in this
outside London world. Your brothers may have their own business to
mind, Mr. Kenyon is at New York, we will suppose; here am I--what
else, _what else_ makes me count my cleverness to you, as I know I
have done more than once, by word and letter, but the real wish to be
set at work? I should have, I hope, better taste than to tell any
everyday acquaintance, who could not go out, one single morning even,
on account of a headache, that the weather was delightful, much less
that I had been walking five miles and meant to run ten--yet to you I
boasted once of polking and waltzing and more--but then would it not
be a very superfluous piece of respect in the four-footed bird to keep
his wings to himself because his Master Oceanos could fly forsooth?
Whereas he begins to wave a flap and show how ready they are to be
off--for what else were the good of him? Think of this--and

Know me for yours

R.B.

For good you are, to those notes--you shall have more,--that is, the
rest--on Wednesday then, at 3, except as you except. God bless you.

Oh, let me tell you--I suppose Mr. Horne must be in town--as I
received a letter two days ago, from the contriver of some literary
society or other who had before written to get me to belong to it,
protesting _against_ my reasons for refusing, and begging that 'at all
events I would suspend my determination till I had been visited by Mr.
H. on the subject'--and, as they can hardly mean to bring him express
fr