[Postmark: April 29, 1846]
Oh, post, post, how I am plagued by what uses to de-
light me ! No letter, — and I cannot but think you have
written one, my Ba ! It will come perhaps at 3 o’clock.
Shame and again, shame !
Meantime I will tell you what a dear, merciful Ba you
are, in only threatening me with daggers, — when you play
at threatening, — instead of declaring you will frown at me.
. . Oh, but here ‘ Fear recoils, he knows well why, even at
the sound himself has made — ‘
The best of it is, that this was the second fright, and
by no means the most formidable. When I read that para-
graph beginning ‘ you need not think any more of going
with me to Italy ‘ — shall I only say I was alarmed ? With-
out a particle of affectation, I tell Ba, I am, cannot help
being, alarmed even now — we have been discussing possibilities
— and it is rather more possible than probable that
Miss Bayley may ‘ carry off’ my Ba, and her Flush, and, say,
an odd volume of the Cyclic Poets, all in her pocket . . she
being, if I remember, of the race of the Anakim — than that
I shall ever find in the wide world a flesh and blood woman
able to bear the weight of the ‘ feelings,’ I rest now upon
the B and the A which spell Ba s name, — only her name !
Forster sent a note last evening urging me to go and
dine with him and Leigh Hunt to-day, — there was no re-
fusing. There is sunshine — you may have been down-stairs
— but the wind continues.
I shall know to-morrow — but surely a letter is to come
presently — let me wait a little.
Nothing ! Pray write if anything have happened, my
own Ba !
No time — Ever your