y refusing to kiss the baby, on the ground of
his being 'troppo grande.' He has learnt quantities of English words,
and is in consequence more unintelligible than ever. Poor darling! I am
in pain about him to-day. Wilson goes to spend a fortnight with her
mother, and I don't know how I shall be comforter enough. There will be
great wailing and gnashing of teeth certainly, and I shall be in prison
for the next two weeks, and have to do all the washing and dressing
myself....

Your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Mitford_

58 Welbeck Street:
Saturday, September 14, 1852 [postmark].

My dearest Miss Mitford,--I am tied and bound beyond redemption for the
next fortnight at least, therefore the hope of seeing you must be for
_afterwards_. I dare say you think that a child can be stowed away like
other goods; but I do assure you that my child, though quite capable of
being amused by his aunts for a certain number of half-hours, would
break his little heart if I left him for a whole day while he had not
Wilson. When she is here, he is contented. In her absence he is
sceptical about happiness, and suspicious of complete desolation. Every
now and then he says to me, 'Will mama' (saying it in his pretty,
broken, unquotable language) 'go away and leave Peninni all alone?' He
won't let a human being touch him. I wash and dress him, and have him to
sleep with me, and Robert is the only other helper he will allow of.
'There's spoiling of a child!' say you. But he is so good and tender and
sensitive that we can't go beyond a certain line. For instance, I was
quite frightened about the effect of Wilson's leaving him. We managed to
prepare him as well as we could, and when he found she was actually
gone, the passion of grief I had feared was just escaped. He struggled
with himself, the eyes full of tears, and the lips quivering, but there
was not any screaming and crying such as made me cry last year on a like
occasion. He had made up his mind.

You see I can't go to you just now, whatever temptations you hold out.
Wait--oh, we must wait. And whenever I do go to you, you will see Robert
at the same time. He will like to see _you_; and besides, he would as
soon trust me to travel to Reading alone as I trust Peninni to be alone
here. I believe he thinks I should drop off my head and leave it under
the seat of the rail-carriage if he didn't take care of it....

I ought to have told you