would not torment you for
letters. Last night, came a real one--dearest! So we could not keep
our sabbath to-day! It is a fast day instead, ... on my part. How
should I feel (I have been thinking to myself), if I did not see you
on Saturday, and could not hope to see you on Monday, nor on Tuesday,
nor on Wednesday, nor Thursday nor Friday, nor Saturday again--if all
the sabbaths were gone out of the world for me! May God bless you!--it
has grown to be enough prayer!--as _you_ are enough (and all, besides)
for

Your own

BA.

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

[Post-mark, February 7, 1846.]

The clock strikes--_three_; and I am here, not with you--and my
'fractious' headache at the very worst got suddenly better just now,
and is leaving me every minute--as if to make me aware, with an
undivided attention, that at this present you are waiting for me, and
soon will be wondering--and it would be so easy now to dress myself
and walk or run or ride--do anything that led to you ... but by no
haste in the world could I reach you, I am forced to see, before a
quarter to five--by which time I think my letter must arrive. Dear,
dearest Ba, did you but know how vexed I am--with myself, with--this
is absurd, of course. The cause of it all was my going out last
night--yet that, neither, was to be helped, the party having been
twice put off before--once solely on my account. And the sun shines,
and you would shine--

Monday is to make all the amends in its power, is it not? Still, still
I have lost my day.

Bless you, my ever-dearest.

Your R.

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

Sunday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 9, 1846.]

My dearest--there are no words,--nor will be to-morrow, nor even in
the Island--I know that! But I do love you.

My arms have been round you for many minutes since the last word--

I am quite well now--my other note will have told you when the change
began--I think I took too violent a shower bath, with a notion of
getting better in as little time as possible,--and the stimulus turned
mere feverishness to headache. However, it was no sooner gone, in a
degree, than a worse plague came. I sate thinking of you--but I knew
my note would arrive at about four o'c