oding had pursued
me from the beginning; but all is _yours_--you crust me round with
gold and jewelry like the wood of a sceptre; and why should you
transfer your own work? Wood enough to choose from in the first
instance, but the choice once made!... So I rest on you, for life, for
death, beloved--beside you do stand, in my solemn belief, the direct
miraculous gift of God to me--that is my solemn belief; may I be
thankful!

I am anxious to hear from you ... when am I not?--but _not_ before the
American letter is written and sent. Is that done? And who was the
visitor on Monday--and if &c. _what_ did he remark?--And what is
right or wrong with Saturday--is it to be mine?

Bless you, dearest--now and for ever--words cannot say how much I am
your own.

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

Tuesday Evening.
[Post-mark, December 4, 1845.]

No Mr. Kenyon after all--not yesterday, not to-day; and the knock at
the door belonged perhaps to the post, which brought me a kind letter
from Mrs. Jameson to ask how I was, and if she might come--but she
won't come on Saturday.... I shall 'provide'--she may as well (and
better) come on a free day. On the other side, are you sure that Mr.
Procter may not stretch out his hand and seize on Saturday (he was to
dine with you, you said), or that some new engagement may not start up
suddenly in the midst of it? I trust to you, in such a case, to alter
_our_ arrangement, without a second thought. Monday stands close by,
remember, and there's a Saturday to follow Monday ... and I should
understand at a word, or apart from a word.

Just as _you_ understand how to 'take me with guile,' when you tell me
that anything in me can have any part in making you happy ... you, who
can say such words and call them 'vain words.' Ah, well! If I only
knew certainly, ... more certainly than the thing may be known by
either me or you, ... that nothing in me could have any part in making
you _un_happy, ... ah, would it not be enough ... _that_ knowledge ...
to content me, to overjoy me? but _that_ lies too high and out of
reach, you see, and one can't hope to get at it except by the ladder
Jacob saw, and which an archangel helped to hide away behind the gate
of Heaven afterwards.

_Wednesday._--In the meantime I had a letter from you yesterday, and
am promised another to-day. How ... I was going to say 'kind' and
pull down the thunders ... how _un_kind ... wil