people,
and she is among them--for reasons--for reasons.

_R.B. to E.B.B._

Saturday Morning.
[Post-mark, February 23, 1846.]

So all was altered, my love--and, instead of Miss T. and the other
friend, I had your brother and Procter--to my great pleasure. After, I
went to that place, and soon got away, and am very well this morning
in the sunshine; which I feel with you, do I not? Yesterday after
dinner we spoke of Mrs. Jameson, and, as my wont is--(Here your letter
reaches me--let me finish this sentence now I have finished kissing
you, dearest beyond all dearness--My own heart's Ba!)--oh, as I am
used, I left the talking to go on by itself, with the thought busied
elsewhere, till at last my own voice startled me for I heard my tongue
utter 'Miss Barrett ... that is, Mrs. Jameson says' ... or 'does ...
or does not.' I forget which! And if anybody noticed the _gaucherie_
it must have been just your brother!

Now to these letters! I do solemnly, unaffectedly wonder how you can
put so much pure felicity into an envelope so as that I shall get it
as from the fount head. This to-day, those yesterday--there is, I see,
and know, thus much goodness in line after line, goodness to be
scientifically appreciated, _proved there_--but over and above, is it
in the writing, the dots and traces, the seal, the paper--here does
the subtle charm lie beyond all rational accounting for? The other day
I stumbled on a quotation from J. Baptista Porta--wherein he avers
that any musical instrument made out of wood possessed of medicinal
properties retains, being put to use, such virtues undiminished,--and
that, for instance, a sick man to whom you should pipe on a pipe of
elder-tree would so receive all the advantage derivable from a
decoction of its berries. From whence, by a parity of reasoning, I may
discover, I think, that the very ink and paper were--ah, what were
they? Curious thinking won't do for me and the wise head which is
mine, so I will lie and rest in my ignorance of content and understand
that without any magic at all you simply wish to make one
person--which of your free goodness proves to be your R.B.--to make me
supremely happy, and that you have your wish--you _do_ bless me! More
and more, for the old treasure is piled undiminished and still the new
comes glittering in. Dear, dear heart of my heart, life of my life,
_will this last_, let _me_ begin to ask? Ca