HOMERTON, 27th N071. 1838.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,—The cake was delicious: it tasted of Blackdeep, and the cross-over will be most useful. It will keep me warm on cold days, and the love that came with it will thicken the wool. But, mother, it is not a month ago since you sent me the stockings. You are always at work for me. You are just like father. He gave us things not only on birthdays, but when we never looked out for them. Do you remember that week when wheat dropped three shillings a quarter? He had two hundred quarters which he might have sold ten days earlier. He was obliged to sell them at the next market and lost thirty pounds, but he had seen at Ely that day a little desk, and he knew I wanted a desk, and he bought it for me with a fishing-rod and landing-net for Jim.

My husband said he could not think of anything I needed and wrote me a cheque for two pounds.

0! that you could come here, and yetI am certain you must not. My heart aches to have you. In my day-dreams I go over the long miles to Blackdeep, through Ware, through Royston, through Cambridge,

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through every village, and then I feel how far away you are. I turned out of the room the other day the chair in which you always sat. I could not bear to see it empty. Charles noticed it had gone and ordered it to be brought back. He may have suspected the reason whyI put it upstairs. My dearest, dearest mother, never fear that my affection for you can become less. Sometimes after marriage a woman loves her mother more than she ever loved her before.

It is a black fog here and not a breath of air is stirring. How different are our fogs at Blackdeep! They may be thick, but they are white and do not make us miserable. I never shall forget when I was last in Fortyacres and saw the mist lying near the river, and the church spire bright in the sunlight. The churchyard and the lower part of the church were quite hidden.

What a mercy Jim was not trapped by Dolly, for I suppose it was she. Jim is not the first she has tried to get. You are quite right. She might have broken your heart, and I am sure she would have broken Jim’s, for she is as hard as a millstone.— Your loving child,

ESTHER.

BLACKDEEP FEN, 3rd Deeeméer 1838.

Your letter made me feel unhappy. I am afraid something is on your mind. What is the matter? Iwas not well before I went to Homerton the last time, but maybe it was not London that upset me. If you cannot leave, I shall come. Let me hear by the next post.

HOMERTON, 5th Deeember 1838.

I told Charles I was expecting you. He said that your sudden determination seemed odd. ‘Your mother,’ he added, ‘is a woman who acts upon impulses. She ought always to take time for consideration. This is hardly the proper season for travelling.’ I asked him if he would let me go to Black— deep. He replied that, unless there was some particular reason for it, my proposal was as unwise as yours. What am I to do? A particular reason! It is a particular reason that I pine for my mother. Can there be any reason more particular than a longing for the sight of a dear face, for kisses and embraces? You must counsel me.

BLACKDEEP, r 5!): December 1838.

As Charles imagines I am carried away by what he calls impulses, I did not answer your letter at once, and I have been thinking as much as I can. I am not a good hand at it. Your dear father had a joke against me. ‘Rachel, you can’t think; but never mind, you can do much better without thinking than other people can with it.’ I wish I had gone straight to you at once, and yet it was better I did not. It would have put Charles out, and this would not have been pleasant for either you or me. I would not have you at Blackdeep now for worlds. The low fever has broken out, and today there were two funerals. Parson preached a sermon about it; it was a judgment from God. Perhaps it is, but why did it take your father three years ago? It is all a mystery, and it looks to me sometimes as if here on earth there were nothing but mystery. I have just heard that parson is down with the fever himself. Do let me have a long letter at once.

HOMERTON, 20th December 1838.

A Mrs. Perkins has been here. She sat with me for an hour. She spends her afternoons in going her rounds among her friends, as she calls them, but she does not care for them, nor do they care for her. She looks and speaks like a woman who could not care for anybody, and yet perhaps there may be somewhere a person who could move her.

I am so weary of the talk of my neigh~ bours. It is so different from what we used to have at Blackdeep. Oh me! those evenings when father came in at dark, and Mr. and Mrs. Thornley came afterwards and we had supper at eight, and father and Mr. Thornley smoked their pipes and drank our home-brewed ale and we had all the news —how much Mr. Thornley had got for his malt, how that pig-headed old Stubbs wouldn’t sell his corn, and how when he began to thresh it and the ferrets were brought, a hundred rats were killed and bushels of wheat had been eaten.

You ask me what is the matter. I do not deny I am not quite happy, but it would be worse than useless to dwell upon my unhappiness and try to give you reasons for it. London, in the winter, most likely does not suit me. I shall certainly see you in the spring, and then I hope I shall be better.

BLACKDEEP FEN, Christmas Day, 1838.

As a rule it is right to hide our troubles, but it is not right that you should hide yours