After service a sort of processional instinct drew people up to the house:  they waited about till permission was given, and went in to look at their old man, lying in high state among his books.  I did not go.  Beloved, I have never yet seen death:  you have, I know.  Do you, I wonder, remember your father better than I mine:—­or your brother?  Are they more living because you saw them once not living?  I think death might open our eyes to those we lived on ill terms with, but not to the familiar and dear.  I do not need you dead, to be certain that your heart has mine for its true inmate and mine yours.

I love you, I love you:  so let good-night bring you good-morning!

N.

At long intervals, dearest, I write to you a secret all about yourself for my eyes to see:  because, chiefly because, I have not you to look at.  Thus I bless myself with you.

Away over the world west of this and a little bit north is the city of spires where you are now.  Never having seen it I am the more free to picture it as I like:  and to me it is quite full of you:—­quite greedily full, Beloved, when elsewhere you are so much wanted!  I send my thoughts there to pick up crumbs for me.

It is a strange blend of notions—­wisdom and ignorance combined:  for you I seem to know perfectly; but of your life nothing at all.  And yet nobody there knows so much about you as I. What you do matters so much less than what you are.  You, who are the clearest heart in all the world, do what you will, you are so still to me, Beloved.

I take a happy armful of thoughts about you into all my dreams:  and when I wake they are there still, and have done nothing but remain true.  What better can I ask of them?

You do love me:  you have not changed?  Without change I remain yours so long as I live.

O.

And you, Beloved, what are you thinking of me all this while?  Think well of me, I beg you:  I deserve so much, loving you as truly as I do!

So often, dearest, I sit thinking my hands into yours again as when we were saying good-by the last time.  Then it was, under our laughter and light words, that I saw suddenly how the thing too great to name had become true, that from friends we were changed into lovers.  It seemed the most natural thing to be, and yet was wonderful—­for it was I who loved you first:  a thing I could never be ashamed of, and am now proud to own—­for has it not proved me wise?  My love for you is the best wisdom that I have.  Good-night, dearest!  Sleep as well as I love you, and nobody in the world will sleep so soundly.

P.

A few times in my life, Beloved, I have had the Blue-moon-hunger for something which seemed too impossible and good ever to come true:  prosaic people call it being “in the blues”; I comfort myself with a prettier word for it.  To-day, not the Blue-moon itself, but the Man of it came down and ate plum-porridge with me!  Also, I do believe that it burnt his mouth, and am quite reasonably happy thinking so, since it makes me know that you love me as much as ever.