Well, dearest, if you have been patient with me over so much about nothing, I pray this letter may appear to you written in gold.  Why I write so is, partly, that, it is bad for us both to be down in the mouth, or with hearts down at heel:  and so, since you cannot, I have to do the dancing;—­and, partly, because I found I had a bad temper on me which needed curing, and being brought to the sun-go-down point of owing no man anything.  Which, sooner said, has finally been done; and I am very meek now and loving to you, and everything belonging to you—­not to come nearer the sore point.

And I hope some day, some day, as a reward to my present submission, that you will sprain your ankle in my company (just a very little bit for an excuse) and let me have the nursing of it!  It hurts my heart to have your poor bones crying out for comfort that I am not to bring to them.  I feel robbed of a part of my domestic training, and may never pick up what I have just lost.  And I fear greatly you must have been truly in pain to have put off Meredith for a day.  If I had been at hand to read to you, I flatter myself you would have liked him well, and been soothed.  You must take the will, Beloved, for the deed.  I kiss you now, as much as even you can demand; and when you get this I will be thinking of you all over again.—­When do I ever leave off?  Love, love, love till our next meeting-, and then more love still, and more!—­Ever your own.

LETTER XXI.

Dearest:  I am in a simple mood to-day, and give you the benefit of it:  I shall become complicated again presently, and you will hear from me directly that happens.

The house only emptied itself this morning; I may say emptied, for the remainder fits like a saint into her niche, and is far too comfortable to count.  This is C——­, whom you only once met, when she sat so much in the background that you will not remember her.  She has one weakness, a thirst between meals—­the blameless thirst of a rabid teetotaler.  She hides cups of cold tea about the place, as a dog its bones:  now and then one gets spilled or sat on, and when she hears of the accident, she looks thirsty, with a thirst which only that particular cup of tea could have quenched.  In no other way is she any trouble:  indeed, she is a great dear, and has the face of a Madonna, as beautiful as an apocryphal gospel to look at and “make believe” in.

Arthur, too, like the rest of them, when he came over to give me his brotherly blessing, wished to know what you were like.  I didn’t pretend to remember your outward appearance too well,—­told him you looked like a common or garden Englishman, and roused his suspicions by so careless a championship of my choice.  He accused me of being in reality highly sentimental about you, and with having at that moment your portrait concealed and strung around my neck in a locket.  Mother-Aunt stood up for me