Good-by, dearest, and for this letter so full of such little worth call me what names you like; and I will go to Jemima, Keziah, and Kerenhappuch for the patience in which they must have taken after their father when he so named them, I suppose for a discipline.

My Beloved, let my heart come where it wants to be.  Twilight has been on me to-day, I don’t know why; and I have not written it off as I hoped to do.—­All yours and nothing left.

LETTER XLIX.

Dearest:  I suppose your mother’s continued absence, and her unexplanation of her further stay, must be taken for unyielding disapproval, and tells us what to expect of February.  It is not a cordial form of “truce”:  but since it lets me see just twice as much of you as I should otherwise, I will not complain so long as it does not make you unhappy.  You write to her often and kindly, do you not?

Well, if this last letter of hers frees you sufficiently, it is quite settled at this end that you are to be with us for Christmas:—­read into that the warmest corners of a heart already fully occupied.  I do not think of it too much, till I am assured it is to be.

Did you go over to Pembury for the day?  Your letter does not say anything:  but your letters have a wonderful way with them of leaving out things of outside importance.  I shall hear from the rattle of returning fire-engines some day that Hatterling has been burned down:  and you will arrive cool the next day and say, “Oh yes, it is so!”

I am sure you have been right to secure this pledge of independence to yourself:  but it hurts me to think what a deadly offense it may be both to her tenderness for you and her pride and stern love of power.  To realize suddenly that Hatterling does not mean to you so much as the power to be your own master and happy in your own way, which is altogether opposite to her way, will be so much of a blow that at first you will be able to do nothing to soften it.

February fill-dyke is likely to be true to its name, this coming one, in all that concerns us and our fortunes.  Meanwhile, if at Pembury you brought things any nearer settlement, and are not coming so soon as to-morrow, let me know:  for some things of “outside importance” do affect me unfavorably while in suspense.  I have not your serene determination to abide the workings of Kismet when once all that can be done is done.

The sun sets now, when it does so visibly, just where Pembury is.  I take it as an omen.  In your diary to-morrow you may write down in the business column that you have had a business letter from me, or as near to one as I can go:—­chiefly for that it requires an answer on this matter of “outside importance,” which otherwise you will altogether leave out.  But you will do better still to come.  My whole heart goes out to fetch you:  my dearest dear, ever your own.