MANUSCRIPT: missing.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 179-180; LL 307-308; L (1931) 173- 174; LH 51-52, dated (presumably by ED): Saturday Eve.

In October 1858, Austin Dickinson was taken ill with typhoid fever. Harriet Matthews, the eight- year-old daughter of Richard Matthews, the Dickinson stableman, died of scarlet fever on November 1. ED uses the same phrase "Mine is but just the thief's request" in a later letter to Higginson (no. 282).