And as for the day: I have been thinking you the most uncurious of men,
because you had not asked: and supposed it was too early days yet for
you to remember that I had ever been born. To-day is my birthday! you
said nothing, so I said nothing; and yet this has come: I trusted my
star to show its sweet influences in its own way. Or, after all, did you
know, and had you asked anyone but me? Yet had you known, you would
have wished me the "happy returns" which among all your dear words to me
you do not. So I take it that the motion comes straight to you from
heaven; and, in the event, you will pardon me for having been still
secretive and shy in not telling what you did not inquire after.
_Yours_, I knew, dear, quite long ago, so had no need to ask you for it.
And it is six months before you will be in the same year with me again,
and give to twenty-two all the companionable sweetness that twenty-one
has been having.

Many happy returns of _my_ birthday to you, dearest! That is all that my
birthdays are for. Have you been happy to-day, I wonder? and am
wondering also whether this evening we shall see you walking quietly in
and making everything into perfection that has been trembling just on
the verge of it all day long.

One drawback of my feast is that I have to write short to you; for there
are other correspondents who on this occasion look for quick answers,
and not all of them to be answered in an offhand way. Except you, it is
the coziest whom I keep waiting; but elders have a way with them--even
kind ones: and when they condescend to write upon an anniversary, we
have to skip to attention or be in their bad books at once.

So with the sun still a long way out of bed, I have to tuck up these
sheets for you, as if the good of the day had already been sufficient