n? Besides, there would be a blank in
your knowledge of my life, had you never seen me in this home, grown
dear to me beyond all expectation, through my great happiness.
Besides, I want you and Gabriel to know each other.

Mrs. Rayner--if you _must_ bring her--will find enough society at
Graysmill to keep her busy for a month or two; I think she would get
on splendidly with Uncle George and his people.

You and I, my darling, will be happy together as of old. I have told
grandmamma and Aunt Caroline that I have invited the pretty friend
whose photographs they admire so much, to come and stay with me;
they ask me to add their importunities to mine.

Come, dearest, and without delay, for your own sake and mine. Come,
and let us be happy together whilst I am still your lover of old
years.

EMILIA.

Answer immediately, will you, Mrs. Norris?

LETTER XXXV.

GRAYSMILL, March 26th.

You are the best friend that ever lived! I am quite restless with
impatience, so is Gabriel, so are my old ones. And who most of all?
Oh! little white face, how I long to hold you in my hands again, and
what warmth of love and happiness I long to pour into your heart!

I shall not scold you, because you are not well, but what do you
mean by saying that you will come, "although of course we shall
never see each other"? Dear silly, do you imagine that I spend the
whole day with that creature you pretend to be so jealous of?

Not a bit of it! Sometimes, just by way of a little salutary
training in renunciation, we don't even meet every day. No, the bulk
of my time will be yours and mine; we will sit up here in my room,
beneath my mother's portrait; we will make the old days live again,
weld the old and the new into one. Then, Gabriel and I will take you
with us for walks fitting a fairy, in the woods; how you will love
them! The trees are misty already with the promise of leaves, and
all manner of sweet things are beginning to pierce the ground. How
we shall spoil you, we two!

So you are coming,--I can hardly believe it. Never say again that I
shall forget you. Let me remind you, Madam, if all else fail to
convince you, that we two are women, and that there is one tender
love, one yearning, which can only be betwixt woman and woman.

There is something infinitely pathetic in this truth; a man may be
the dearest, the nearest he c