Ah my hawthorn spray!  Do you know, I caught myself pitying it for being gathered, with that green promise of leaves on it!  There is room too on it for the feet of a bird!  Still I shall keep it longer than it would have stayed in the hedge, that is certain!

The first you ever gave me was a yellow rose sent in a letter, and shall I tell you what that means—­the yellow rose? ‘Infidelity,’ says the dictionary of flowers.  You see what an omen, ... to begin with!

Also you see that I am not tired with the great avatar to-day—­the ‘fell swoop’ rather—­mine, into the drawing-room, and Mrs. Jameson’s on me.

And I shall hear to-morrow again, really?  I ‘let’ you.  And you are best, kindest, dearest, every day.  Did I ever tell you that you made me do what you choose?  I fancied that I only thought so.  May God bless you.  I am your own.

Shall I have the ‘Soul’s Tragedy’ on Saturday?—­any of it?  But do not work—­I beseech you to take care.

R.B. to E.B.B.

[Post-mark, February 27, 1846.]

To be sure my ‘first person’ was nonsensical, and, in that respect made speak properly, I hope, only he was cut short in the middle of his performance by the exigencies of the post.  So, never mind what such persons say, my sweetest, because they know nothing at all—­quod erat demonstrandum.  But you, love, you speak roses, and hawthorn-blossoms when you tell me of the cloak put on, and the descent, and the entry, and staying and delaying.  I will have had a hand in all that; I know what I wished all the morning, and now this much came true!  But you should have seen the regimentals, if I could have so contrived it, for I confess to a Chinese love for bright red—­the very names ‘vermilion’ ‘scarlet’ warm me, yet in this cold climate nobody wears red to comfort one’s eye save soldiers and fox hunters, and old women fresh from a Parish Christmas Distribution of cloaks.  To dress in floating loose crimson silk, I almost understand being a Cardinal!  Do you know anything of Nat Lee’s Tragedies?  In one of them a man angry with a Cardinal cries—­

    Stand back, and let me mow this poppy down,
    This rank red weed that spoils the Churches’ corn.

Is not that good? and presently, when the same worthy is poisoned (that is the Cardinal)—­they bid him—­’now, Cardinal, lie down and roar!’

    Think of thy scarlet sins!

Of the justice of all which, you will judge with no Mrs. Jameson for guide when we see the Sistina together, I trust!  By the way, yesterday I went to Dulwich to see some pictures, by old Teniers, Murillo, Gainsborough, Raphael!—­then twenty names about, and last but one, as if just thought of, ‘Correggio.’  The whole collection, including ’a divine picture by Murillo,’ and Titian’s Daughter (hitherto supposed to be in the Louvre)—­the whole I would, I think, have cheerfully given a pound