sorrow. For myself I can only say that I feel as if I were a child
again in respect of her. She is as much with _me_ now, as with any of
her children, even if I am in Jamaica or Ceylon. _Now_ she knows and
sees my life, and I have a feeling as if she were an ever-present
_conscience_ to me (as a mother's _presence_ makes a child alive to
what is right and what is wrong), which I hope by GOD's grace
may never leave me and may make me more worthy of having had such a
Mother....

TO C.T. GATTY,

_R Lines; South Camp._ January 4, 1874.

DEARLY BELOVED,

What _would_ I give to have a visit from you! I fear you did not get
home at Xmas! Thank you a thousand times for your card--I think it
almost the very prettiest I ever saw!

... As I am not prompt _to time_ with my Xmas Box I may as well be
appropriate in kind. Is there any trifle you are "in want" of?

"Price ner object," as Emmanuel Eaton (the old Nursery man) (very
appropriately) named his latest Fuchsia, when he saw us children
turning down the Wood End Lane in the Donkey Carriage on a birthday,
flush of coppers--and bashful about abating prices!

... I was on the border of sending you a nice collection of
poetry--and a shadow crossed my brain that you have said you "don't
care about poetry"--"Lives there a man with soul so dead"--or does the
great commercial whirl weary out the brain?--If I am wrong and you
like it--will you have (if you don't possess) Trench's fine collection
of poems of all dates?

Your ever devoted
J.H.E.

TO C.T. GATTY,

_X Lines, South Camp._ March 13, 1874.

MY DEAREST CHARLIE,

I am _quite a brute_ not to have written before. I didn't, because (to
say the truth!) I had a "return compliment" in the Valentine line in
my head, and I never got time to do it! You know what the _pressure_
of work is, and I have had a lot in hand, and been _very_ far from
well.

It was VERY good of you to send me a Val., and much appreciated.

I also owe you thanks for a copy of the "fretful" Porcupine [_Sketch_]
duly received. I was very glad to get it--for you have greatly,
wonderfully improved in your writing. I liked your article extremely,
and was so very glad to see the marked improvement....

I am _not_, when I speak of improvement in the art of English
composition, alluding solely to the time when you wrote as follows
(italics and caps your own):

"Mr. Gatty thinks that Messrs. Fisher & Holmes has sent more than he
desired _he sa