interpret all the details you can give us. But our words
about our own home doings would be very vague and colourless to you.
You must always imagine us coming to see you and wanting to know as
much about you as we can, and like a charming hostess gratify that
want. I must thank you for the account of Cavour in _The Athenaeum_,
which stirred me strongly. I am afraid I have what _The Saturday
Review_ would call 'a morbid delight in deathbeds'--not having reached
that lofty superiority which considers it bad taste to allude to them.

"How is Beatrice, the blessed and blessing? That will always be a
history to interest us--how her brown hair darkens, how her voice
deepens and strengthens, and how you get more and more delight in her.
I need send no separate message to Mr. Trollope, before I say that

"I am always yours, with lively remembrance,

"MARION E. LEWES."

* * * * *

It needed George Eliot's fine and minute handwriting to put all this
into one page of note-paper.

The next letter that came from Blandford Square, dated 9th December,
1861, was also a joint one, the larger portion of which however is
from her pen.

* * * * *

"DEAR GOOD PEOPLE,--If your ears burn as often as you are talked about
in this house, there must be an unpleasant amount of aural circulation
to endure! And as the constant _refrain_ is, 'Really we must write to
them, that they may not altogether slip away from us,' I have this
morning screwed my procrastination to the writing-desk.

"First and foremost let us know how you are, and what are the results
of the bathing. Then a word as to the new novel, or any other work,
will be acceptable. I lend about _La Beata_ in all good quarters, and
always hear golden opinions from all sorts of people. Of course you
hear from Anthony.

"Is he prosperous and enjoying his life? The book will have an enormous
sale just now; but I fancy he will find more animosity and less
friendliness than he expected, to judge from the state of exasperation
against the Britisher, which seems to be general.

"We have been pursuing the even baritone--I wish I could say tenor--of
our way. My health became seriously alarming in September, so we went
off to Malvern for a fortnight; and there the mountain air, exercise,
and regular diet set me up, so that I have been in better training for
work than I had been for a long while. Polly has not been strong, yet