LETTER XI


Oh, Dearest: I have danced and I have danced till I am tired! I
am dropping with sleep, but I must just touch you and say good-night.
This was our great day of publishing, dearest, _ours_: all the world
knows it; and all admire your choice! I was determined they should. I
have been collecting scalps for you to hang at your girdle. All thought
me beautiful: people who never did so before. I wanted to say to them,
"Am I not beautiful? I am, am I not?" And it was not for myself I was
asking this praise. Beloved, I was wearing the magic rose--what you gave
me when we parted: you saying, alas, that you were not to be there. But
you _were_! Its leaves have not dropped nor the scent of it faded. I
kiss you out of the heart of it. Good-night: come to me in my first
dream!




LETTER XII.


Dearest: It has been such a funny day from post-time onwards:--
congratulations on the great event are beginning to arrive in envelopes
and on wheels. Some are very kind and dear; and some are not so--only the
ordinary seemliness of polite sniffle-snaffle. Just after you had gone
yesterday, Mrs. ---- called and was told the news. Of course she knew _of_
you: but didn't think she had ever seen you. "Probably he passed you at
the gates," I said. "What?" she went off with a view-hallo; "that