you any least
embarrassment in the world, I got--just that shake of the hand, just
that look--and no more! And was it all for nothing, all needless after
all? So I said to myself all the way home.

When I am away from you--a crowd of things press on me for
utterance--'I will say them, not write them,' I think:--when I see
you--all to be said seems insignificant, irrelevant,--'they can be
written, at all events'--I think _that_ too. So, feeling so much, I
say so little!

I have just returned from Town and write for the Post--but _you_ mean
to write, I trust.

_That_ was not obtained, that promise, to be happy with, as last time!

How are you?--tell me, dearest; a long week is to be waited now!

Bless you, my own, sweetest Ba.

I am wholly your

R.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Thursday.
[Post-mark, January 15, 1846.]

Dearest, dearer to my heart minute by minute, I had no wish to give
you pain, God knows. No one can more readily consent to let a few
years more or less of life go out of account,--be lost--but as I sate
by you, you so full of the truest life, for this world as for the
next,--and was struck by the possibility, all that might happen were I
away, in the case of your continuing to acquiesce--dearest, it _is_
horrible--could not but speak. If in drawing you, all of you, closer
to my heart, I hurt you whom I would--_outlive_ ... yes,--cannot speak
here--forgive me, Ba.

My Ba, you are to consider now for me. Your health, your strength, it
is all wonderful; that is not my dream, you know--but what all see.
Now, steadily care for us both--take time, take counsel if you choose;
but at the end tell me what you will do for your part--thinking of me
as utterly devoted, soul and body, to you, living wholly in your life,
seeing good and ill only as you see,--being yours as your hand is,--or
as your Flush, rather. Then I will, on my side, prepare. When I say
'take counsel'--I reserve my last right, the man's right of first
speech. _I_ stipulate, too, and require to say my own speech in my own
words or by letter--remember! But this living without you is too
tormenting now. So begin thinking,--as for Spring, as for a New Year,
as for a new life.

I went no farther than the door with Mr. Kenyon. He must see the
truth; and--you heard the playful words whic