I will make a note as you suggest—­or, perhaps, keep it for the closing number (the next), when it will come fitly in with two or three parting words I shall have to say.  The Rabbis make Bells and Pomegranates symbolical of Pleasure and Profit, the gay and the grave, the Poetry and the Prose, Singing and Sermonizing—­such a mixture of effects as in the original hour (that is quarter of an hour) of confidence and creation.  I meant the whole should prove at last.  Well, it has succeeded beyond my most adventurous wishes in one respect—­’Blessed eyes mine eyes have been, if—­’ if there was any sweetness in the tongue or flavour in the seeds to her.  But I shall do quite other and better things, or shame on me!  The proof has not yet come....  I should go, I suppose, and enquire this afternoon—­and probably I will.

I weigh all the words in your permission to come on Monday ... do not think I have not seen that contingency from the first!  Let it be Tuesday—­no sooner!  Meanwhile you are never away—­never from your place here.

God bless my dearest.

Ever yours

R.B.

R.B. to E.B.B.

Monday Morning.
[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]

This arrived on Saturday night—­I just correct it in time for this our first post—­will it do, the new matter?  I can take it to-morrow—­when I am to see you—­if you are able to glance through it by then.

The ‘Inscription,’ how does that read?

There is strange temptation, by the way, in the space they please to leave for the presumable ’motto’—­’they but remind me of mine own conception’ ... but one must give no clue, of a silk’s breadth, to the ‘Bower,’ yet, One day!

—­Which God send you, dearest, and your

R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

[Post-mark, October 22, 1845.]

Even at the risk of teazing you a little I must say a few words, that there may be no misunderstanding between us—­and this, before I sleep to-night.  To-day and before to-day you surprised me by your manner of receiving my remark about your visits, for I believed I had sufficiently made clear to you long ago how certain questions were ordered in this house and how no exception was to be expected for my sake or even for yours.  Surely I told you this quite plainly long ago.  I only meant to say in my last letter, in the same track ... (fearing in the case of your wishing to come oftener that you might think it unkind in me not to seem to wish the same) ... that if you came too often and it was observed, difficulties and vexations would follow as a matter of course, and it would be wise therefore to run no risk.  That was the head and front of what I meant to say.  The weekly one visit is a thing established and may go on as long as you please—­and there is no objection to your coming twice a week now and then ... if now and then merely ... if