d, "and I am glad to meet you. The
other day I asked to whom the land belonged, and was told that you
were half Italian and rather eccentric. You seem to be a human
being. I am glad to have met you. My name is Gabriel Norton."

Here the big bell rang out from the house, summoning me to tea,--it
had rung once already. So the apparition and I parted company.

I wonder if he has caught cold; I am sure that I have; I have been
sneezing all the evening.

It may be very pleasant and romantic to sit on the moss with a
wood-sprite after a shower, but perhaps it is not very wise.

I must go and say good night downstairs. I left Miss Seymour reading
sentimental ballads on pauper childhood to the old ladies; it must
now be close upon their bed-time.

Good night, beloved.
Your EMILIA.

P.S. I forgot to say that he has one really fine point: his hands
are quite beautiful. I keep on wondering what you would think of
him. O dio! how good it was to laugh again.

LETTER XIII.

GRAYSMILL, October 18th.

Very dear, I hope this letter will reach Vienna before you do, and
welcome you there. The words we write in one mood are read when
another has taken its place; perhaps you are as merry as a bird in
spring by this time,--perhaps not. My poor little dear. I know
myself what it is to sink into a bottomless pit of senseless misery,
but I must tell you that it nearly always happens when I am idle.

A woman that is debarred from woman's best profession--wifehood
and motherhood--must find some other work to do; idleness,
uselessness--above all, idleness--are the hotbed of all manner of
follies. The stupidest man in existence, working day by day at the
worldliest work, has the better of us in this, that he is weighted,
so to speak, and cannot flutter to and fro with every breeze that
blows. You say that you cannot work, that you have heard all this at
least a thousand times; well, never mind, hear it once more!

Take German lessons, your German is very bad; go on with your
singing, your sweet voice is very ignorant; read, make some study,
however unprofitable, of the French Revolution, the Renaissance, the
Conquest of Peru, anything, anything you like; or buy a
sewing-machine at least, and make flannel petticoats for the poor;
anything, Constantia, only don't for Heaven's sake sit there with
yo