large panes of glass, frames and all.  We were terrified out of all propriety, and there has been a dreadful calumny about Henrietta and me—­that we had the hall door open for the purpose of going out into the street with our hair on end, if Bro had not encouraged us by shutting the door and locking it.  I confess to opening the door, but deny the purpose of it—­at least, maintain that I only meant to keep in reserve a way of escape, in case, as seemed probable, the whole house was on its way to the ground.  Indeed, we should think much of the mercy of the escape.  Bro had been on the staircase only five minutes before.  Sarah the housemaid was actually there.  She looked up accidentally and saw the nodding chimneys, and ran down into the drawing-room to papa, shrieking, but escaping with one graze of the hand from one brick.  How did you fare in the wind?  I never much imagined before that anything so true to nature as a real live storm could make itself heard in our streets.  But it has come too surely, and carried away with it, besides our chimney, all that was left to us of the country, in the shape of the Kensington Garden trees.  Now do write to me, dearest Mrs. Martin, and soon, and tell me all you can of your chances and mischances, and how Mr. Martin is getting on with the parish, and yourself with the parishioners.  But you have more the name of living at Colwall than the thing.  You seem to me to lead a far more wandering life than we, for all our homelessness and ‘pilgrim shoon.’  Why, you have been in Ireland since I last said a word to you, even upon paper....

I sometimes think that a pilgrim’s life is the wisest—­at least, the most congenial to the ‘uses of this world.’  We give our sympathies and associations to our hills and fields, and then the providence of God gives them to another, It is better, perhaps, to keep a stricter identity, by calling only our thoughts our own.

Was there anybody in the world who ever loved London for itself?  Did Dr. Johnson, in his paradise of Fleet Street, love the pavement and the walls?  I doubt that—­whether I ought to do so or not—­though I don’t doubt at all that one may be contented and happy here, and love much in the place.  But the place and the privileges of it don’t mix together in one’s love, as is done among the hills and by the seaside.

I or Henrietta must have told you that one of my privileges has been to see Wordsworth twice.  He was very kind to me, and let me hear his conversation.  I went with him and Miss Mitford to Chiswick, and thought all the way that I must certainly be dreaming.  I saw her almost every day of her week’s visit to London (this was all long ago, while you were in France); and she, who overflows with warm affections and generous benevolences, showed me every present and absent kindness, professing to love me, and asking me to write to her.  Her novel is to be published soon after Christmas, and I believe a new tragedy