E.B.B. to R.B.

[Post-mark, October 24, 1845.]

'And be forgiven' ... yes! and be thanked besides—if I knew how to thank you worthily and as I feel ... only that I do not know it, and cannot say it. And it was not indeed 'doubt' of you—oh no—that made me write as I did write; it was rather because I felt you to be surely noblest, ... and therefore fitly dearest, ... that it seemed to me detestable and intolerable to leave you on this road where the mud must splash up against you, and never cry 'gare.' Yet I was quite enough unhappy yesterday, and before yesterday ... I will confess to-day, ... to be too gratefully glad to 'let you be' ... to 'let you have your way'—you who overcome always! Always, but where you tell me not to think of you so and so!—as if I could help thinking of you so, and as if I should not take the liberty of persisting to think of you just so. 'Let me be'—Let me have my way.' I am unworthy of you perhaps in everything except one thing—and that, you cannot guess. May God bless you—

Ever I am yours.

The proof does not come!