October 1869

These Indian-Summer Days with their peculiar Peace remind me of those stillest things that no one can disturb and knowing you are not at Home and have a sister less I liked to try to help you. You might not need assistance?

You speak with so much trust of that which only trust can prove, it makes me feel away, as if my English mates spoke sudden in Italian.

It grieves me that you speak of Death with so much expectation. I know there is no pang like that for those we love, nor any leisure like the one they leave so closed behind them, but Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.

I suppose we are all thinking of Immortality, at times so stimulated that we cannot sleep. Secrets are interesting, but they are also solemn - and speculate with all our might, we cannot ascertain.

I trust as Days go on your sister is more Peace than Pang - though to learn to spare is a sharp acquirement. The subject hurts me so that I will put it down, because it hurts you.

We bruise each other less in talking than in writing, for then a quiet accent helps words themselves too hard.

Do you remember Peter, what the Physician said to Macbeth? "That sort must heal itself."

I am glad you are working. Others are anodyne. You remembered Clara.

The Wedding was small, but lovely, and the sisters have gone. I give you a look of her flowers as Sue and Austin arranged them.

Tell us more of yourself, when you have time and please.

Emily.