Now, do write to me soon again!  Have you read Dr. Arnold’s Life?  I have not, but am very anxious to do so, from the admirable extracts in the ‘Examiner’ of last Saturday, and also from what I hear of it in other quarters.  That Dr. Arnold must have been a man, in the largest and noblest sense.  May God bless you, both of you!  I think of you, dearest Mrs. Martin, much, and remain

Your very affectionate
BA.

To John Kenyon Saturday, October 29, 1844.

The moral of your letter, my dearest cousin, certainly is that no green herb of a secret will spring up and flourish between you and me.

The loss of Flush was a secret.  My aunt’s intention of coming to England (for I know not how to explain what she said to you, but by the supposition of an unfulfilled intention!) was a secret.  And Mr. Chorley’s letter to me was a third secret.  All turned into light!

For the last, you may well praise me for discretion.  The letter he wrote was pleasanter to me than many of the kindnesses (apart from your own) occasioned by my book—­and when you asked me once ’what letters I had received,’ if ever a woman deserved to be canonised for her silence, I did!  But the effort was necessary—­for he particularly desired that I would not mention to ‘our common friends’ the circumstance of his having written to me; and ‘common friends’ could only stand for ‘Mr. Kenyon and Miss Mitford.’  Of course what you tell me, of his liking the poems better still, is delightful to hear; but he reviewed them in the ‘Athenaeum’ surely!  The review we read in the ‘Athenaeum’ was by his hand—­could not be mistaken ...

Well; but Flushie!  It is too true that he has been lost—­lost and won; and true besides that I was a good deal upset by it meo more; and that I found it hard to eat and sleep as usual while he was in the hands of his enemies.  It is a secret too.  We would not tell papa of it.  Papa would have been angry with the unfortunate person who took Flush out without a chain; and would have kicked against the pricks of the necessary bribing of the thief in order to the getting him back.  Therefore we didn’t tell papa; and as I had a very bad convenient headache the day my eyes were reddest, I did not see him (except once) till Flush was on the sofa again.  As to the thieves, you are very kind to talk daggers at them; and I feel no inclination to say ‘Don’t.’  It is quite too bad and cruel.  And think of their exceeding insolence in taking Flush away from this very door, while Arabel was waiting to have the door opened on her return from her walk; and in observing (as they gave him back for six guineas and a half) that they intended to have him again at the earliest opportunity and that then they must have ten guineas!  I tell poor Flushie (while he looks very earnestly in my face) that he and I shall be ruined at last, and that I shall have no money to buy him cakes; but the worst is the anxiety!  Whether