I have a thousand and one things to say to you, but I
wonder if as soon as I see you I shall straightway turn into a poker,
and play the stiffy, as I always do when I have been separated from
my friends. I am writing in a little bit of a den which, by a new
arrangement, I have all to myself. What if there's no table here and
I have to write upon the bureau, sitting on one foot in a chair and
stretching upwards to reach my paper like a monkey? What do I care? I am
writing to _you_, and your spirit, invoked when I took possession of the
premises, comes here sometimes just between daylight and dark, and talks
to me till I am ready to put forth my hand to find yours. Oh! Anna, you
must be everything that is pure and good, through to the very depths
of your heart, that mine may not ache in finding it has loved only an
imaginary being. Not that I expect you to be perfect--for I shouldn't
love you if you were immaculate--but pure in aim and intention and
desire, which I believe you to be.

_29th._--Do you want to know what mischief I've just been at? There lay
poor Miss ----, alias "Weaky" as we call her, taking her siesta in the
most innocent manner imaginable, with a babe-in-the-wood kind of air,
which proved so highly attractive that I could do no less than pick her
up in my arms and pop her (I don't know _but_ it was _head_ first),
right into the bathing-tub which happened to be filled with fresh cold
water. Poor, good little Weaky! There she sits shaking and shivering and
laughing with such perfect sweet humor, that I am positively taking a
vow never to do so again. Well, I had something quite sentimental to say
to you when I began writing, but as the spirit moved me to the above
perpetration of nonsense, I've nothing left in me but fun, and for that
you've no relish, have you?

I made out to cry yesterday and thereby have so refreshed my soul as
to be in the best possible humor just now. The why and wherefore of my
tears, which by the way I don't shed once in an age, was briefly the
withdrawal from school of one of my scholars, one who had so attached
herself to me as to have become almost a part of myself, and whom I
had taught to love you, dear Anna, that I might have the exquisite
satisfaction of talking about you every day--a sort of sweet interlude
between grammar and arithmetic which made the dull hours of school grow
harmonious. She had a presentiment that her life was to close with our
school session, from whic