Fanny.
Harley Street, Tuesday, December 28th, 1841.
My dearest Harriet,
I wrote you two long letters from Bowood, and one crossed note since I came back to town; yet in a letter I get from you this morning you ask me when your letters are "coming to the top" [of my packet of "my letters to be answered," to which I always replied in the succession in which they reached me]; at which, I confess, I feel not a little dismayed. However, it is to be hoped that you will get them sooner or later, and that, in this world or the next, you will discover that I wrote to you two such letters, at such a time....
How can you ask me if I play fair with my letters? Are you not sure that I do? and, whatever may be the case with my better qualities, are not my follies substantial, reliable, consistent, constant follies, that are pretty sure to be found where you left them?
Good-bye, my dearest Harriet. I am terribly out of spirits, but it is near bed-time, and the day will soon be done....
God bless you, dear. Give my kindest love to Dorothy. I am thinking of your return with earnest longing.... As we passed the evening at the Hen and Chickens, in the same room where I began reading you "Les Maîtres Mosaistes," on our return through Birmingham from the lately formed association, your image was naturally very vivid in our memories.
I am ever yours,
Fanny.
Harley Street, December 28th, 1841.