An Englishwomans Love-Letters | Page 9

world began. It
is not for nothing that I am a daughter of Eve.
And here is our world in our hands, yours and mine, now in the making.
Which day are the evening and the morning now? I think it must be the
birds'--and already, with the wings, disobedience has been reached!
Make much of it! the day will come when I shall wish to obey. There
are moments when I feel a wish taking hold of me stronger than I can
understand, that you should command me beyond myself--to things I

have not strength or courage for of my own accord. How close, dearest,
when that day comes, my heart will feel itself to yours! It feels close
now: but it is to your feet I am nearest, as yet. Lift me! There, there,
Beloved, I kiss you with all my will. Oh, dear heart, forgive me for
being no more than I am: your freehold to all eternity!

LETTER XI
Oh, Dearest: I have danced and I have danced till I am tired! I am
dropping with sleep, but I must just touch you and say good-night. This
was our great day of publishing, dearest, ours: all the world knows it;
and all admire your choice! I was determined they should. I have been
collecting scalps for you to hang at your girdle. All thought me
beautiful: people who never did so before. I wanted to say to them,
"Am I not beautiful? I am, am I not?" And it was not for myself I was
asking this praise. Beloved, I was wearing the magic rose--what you
gave me when we parted: you saying, alas, that you were not to be
there. But you were! Its leaves have not dropped nor the scent of it
faded. I kiss you out of the heart of it. Good-night: come to me in my
first dream!

LETTER XII.
Dearest: It has been such a funny day from post-time onwards:--
congratulations on the great event are beginning to arrive in envelopes
and on wheels. Some are very kind and dear; and some are not so--only
the ordinary seemliness of polite sniffle-snaffle. Just after you had gone
yesterday, Mrs. ---- called and was told the news. Of course she knew
of you: but didn't think she had ever seen you. "Probably he passed you
at the gates," I said. "What?" she went off with a view-hallo; "that
well-dressed sort of young fellow in gray, and a mustache, and
knowing how to ride? Met us in the lane. Well, my dear, I do
congratulate you!"
And whether it was by the gray suit, or the mustache, or the knowing

how to ride that her congratulations were so emphatically secured, I
know not!
Others are yet more quaint, and more to my liking. Nan-nan is Nan-nan:
I cannot let you off what she said! No tears or sentiment came from her
to prevent me laughing: she brisked like an old war-horse at the first
word of it, and blessed God that it had come betimes, that she might be
a nurse again in her old age! She is a true "Mrs. Berry," and is ready to
make room for you in my affections for the sake of far-off divine
events, which promise renewed youth to her old bones.
Roberts, when he brought me my pony this morning, touched his hat
quick twice over to show that the news brimmed in his body: and a
very nice cordial way of showing, I thought it! He was quite ready to
talk when I let him go; and he gave me plenty of good fun. He used to
know you when he was in service at the H----s, and speaks of you as
being then "a gallous young hound," whatever that may mean. I
imagine "gallous" to be a rustic Lewis Carroll compound, made up in
equal parts of callousness and gallantry, which most boys are, at some
stage of their existence.
What tales will you be getting of me out of Nan-nan, some day behind
my back, I wonder? There is one I shall forbid her to reveal: it shall be
part of my marriage-portion to show you early that you have got a wife
with a temper!
Here is a whole letter that must end now,--and the great Word never
mentioned! It is good for you to be put upon maigre fare, for once. I
hold my pen back with both hands: it wants so much to give you the
forbidden treat. Oh, the serpent in the garden! See where it has
underlined its meaning. Frailty, thy pen is a J pen!
Adieu, adieu, remember me.

LETTER XIII.
The letters? No, Beloved, I could not! Not yet. There you have caught

me where I own