ight view of the
matter, he is disappointed--very. Should you suppose that four hundred
pounds in Vienna go as far as a thousand in England? I should never
have fancied it.

You shall hear from me, my dearest Mrs. Martin, in another few days;
and I send this as it is, just because I am benighted by the post
hour, and do not like to pass your kindness with even one day's
apparent neglect.

May God bless you and dear Mr. Martin. The kindest wishes for the long
slope of coming year, and for the many, I trust, beyond it, belong to
you from the deepest of our hearts.

But shall you not be coming--setting out--very soon, before I can
write again?

Your affectionate
BA.

_To John Kenyan_
[?January 1844.]

I am so sorry, dear Mr. Kenyon, to hear--which I did, last night, for
the first time--of your being unwell. I had hoped that to-day would
bring a better account, but your note, with its next week prospect, is
disappointing. The 'ignominy' would have been very preferable--to us,
at least, particularly as it need not have lasted beyond to-day,
dear Georgie being quite recovered, and at his law again, and no more
symptoms of small-pox in anybody. We should all be well, if it were
not for me and my cough, which is better, but I am not quite well, nor
have yet been out.

A letter came to me from dear Miss Mitford a few days since, which
I had hoped to talk to you about. Some of the subject of it is Mr.
Kenyon's '_only fault_,' which ought, of course, to be a large one to
weigh against the multitudinous ones of other people, but which seems
to be: 'He has the habit of walking in without giving notice. He
thinks it saves trouble, whereas in a small family, and at a distance
from a town, the effect is that one takes care to be provided for the
whole time that one expects him, and then, by some exquisite ill luck,
on the only day when one's larder is empty, in he comes!' And so, if
you have not written to interrupt her in this process of indefinite
expectation, the 'only fault' will, in her eyes, grow, as it ought, as
large as fifty others.

I do hope, dear Mr. Kenyon, soon to hear that you are better--and
well--and that your course of prophecy may not run smooth all through
next week.

Very truly yours,
E. BARRETT.

Saturday.
_To John Kenyon_
Saturday night [about March 1844].

I return Mr. Burges's criticism, which I omitted to talk to you of
this morning, but which interested me much in the reading. Do let