Ah, sweetest, in spite of our agreement, here is the note that sought not to go, but must—­because, if there is no speaking of Mrs. Jamesons and such like without bringing in your dear name (not dearest name, my Ba!) what is the good of not writing it down, now, when I, though possessed with the love of it no more than usual, yet may speak, and to a hearer?  And I have to thank you with all my heart for the good news of the increasing strength and less need for the opium—­how I do thank you, my dearest—­and desire to thank God through whose goodness it all is!  This I could not but say now, to-morrow I will write at length, having been working a little this morning, with whatever effect.  So now I will go out and see your elm-trees and gate, and think the thoughts over again, and coming home I shall perhaps find a letter.

Dearest, dearest—­my perfect blessing you are!

May God continue his care for us.  R.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Wednesday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 25, 1846.]

Once you were pleased to say, my own Ba, that ’I made you do as I would.’  I am quite sure, you make me speak as you would, and not at all as I mean—­and for one instance, I never surely spoke anything half so untrue as that ’I came with the intention of loving whomever I should find’—­No! wreathed shells and hollows in ruins, and roofs of caves may transform a voice wonderfully, make more of it or less, or so change it as to almost alter, but turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ can no echo (except the Irish one), and I said ‘no’ to such a charge, and still say ‘no.’  I did have a presentiment—­and though it is hardly possible for me to look back on it now without lending it the true colours given to it by the event, yet I can put them aside, if I please, and remember that I not merely hoped it would not be so (not that the effect I expected to be produced would be less than in anticipation, certainly I did not hope that, but that it would range itself with the old feelings of simple reverence and sympathy and friendship, that I should love you as much as I supposed I could love, and no more) but in the confidence that nothing could occur to divert me from my intended way of life, I made—­went on making arrangements to return to Italy.  You know—­did I not tell you—­I wished to see you before I returned?  And I had heard of you just so much as seemed to make it impossible such a relation could ever exist.  I know very well, if you choose to refer to my letters you may easily bring them to bear a sense in parts, more agreeable to your own theory than to mine, the true one—­but that was instinct, Providence—­anything rather than foresight.  Now I will convince you! yourself have noticed the difference between the letters and the writer; the greater ‘distance of the latter from you,’ why was that?  Why, if not because the conduct began with him,