bitterness of even grief. Do give my love to Mrs. Commeline and to
your sisters, and believe me, all of you, that the friends who have
gone from your neighbourhood have not gone from my old remembrance,
either of your kindness to them, or of their own feelings of interest
in you.

Trusting to such old remembrances, I will believe that you care to
know what we are doing and how we are settling--that word which has
now been on our lips for years, which it is marvellous to think how
it got upon human lips at all. We came from Sidmouth to try London and
ourselves, and see whether or not we could live together; and after
more than a year and a half close contact with smoke we find no very
good excuse for not remaining in it; and papa is going on with his
eternal hunt for houses--the wild huntsman in the ballad is nothing
to him, all except the sublimity--intending very seriously to take
the first he can. He is now about one in particular, but I won't tell
where it is because we have considered so many houses in particular
that our considerations have come to be a jest in general. I shall
be heartily glad, at least I _think_ so, for it is possible that
the reality of being bricked up for a lease time may not be very
agreeable. I think I shall be heartily glad when a house is taken, and
we have made it look like our own with our furniture and pictures and
books. I am so anxious to see my old books. I believe I shall begin at
the beginning and read every story book through in the joy of meeting,
and shall be as sedentary as ever I was in my own arm-chair. I
remember when I was a child spreading my vitality, not over trees and
flowers (I do that still--I still believe they have a certain animal
susceptibility to pleasure and pain; 'it is my creed,' and, being
Wordsworth's besides, I am not ashamed of it), but over chairs and
tables and books in particular, and being used to fancy a kind of love