Ba.
R.B. to E.B.B.
Thursday. 8 A.M.
[Post-mark, April 9, 1846.]
Dearest, I have to go out presently and shall not be able to return before night ... so that the letter I expect will only be read then, and answered to-morrow—what will it be, the letter? Nothing but dear and kind, I know ... even deserve to know, in a sense,—because I am sure all in my letter was meant to be ‘read by your light.’ I submit, unfeignedly, to you, there as elsewhere—and,—as I said, I think,—I wrote so, precisely because it was never likely to be my own case. I should consider it the most unhappy thing that could possibly happen to me,—(putting aside the dreadful possibilities one refuses to consider at all,—the most).
Have you made any discoveries about the disposition of Saturday? May I come, dearest? (On Saturday evening I shall see a friend who will tell me all he knows about ships and voyage expenses—or refer me to higher authorities.)
Bless you, now and ever, my own Ba. Do you know, next Saturday, in its position of successor to Good Friday, will be the anniversary of Mr. Kenyon’s asking me, some four years ago, ‘if I would like to see Miss B.’ How I remember? I was staying with him for a couple of days. Now, I will ask myself ‘would you like to kiss Ba?’ ‘Then comes the Selah.’ Goodbye, dearest-dearest!
Yours R.
E.B.B. to R.B.
Thursday Evening.
[Post-mark, April 10, 1846.]
I thought you had not written to me to-night, ever dearest! Nine o’clock came and went, and I heard no postman’s knock; and I supposed that I did not deserve (in your mind) to hear it at all. At last I rang the bell and said to Wilson ... ‘Look in the letter-box—there may be a letter perhaps. If there should be none, you need not come up-stairs to tell me—I shall understand.’ So she left me, and, that time, I listened for footsteps ... the footsteps of my letter. If I had not heard them directly, what should I have thought?