MANUSCRIPT: HCL (L 51). Ink.

PUBLICATION: Poems (1955) 924.

On the last blank page a note in Helen Jackson's hand reads: "This is mine, remember, You must send it back to me, or else you will be a robber." (Helen Jackson returned the letter to ED, who kept it, for an explanation of the three lines of verse). The letter was written when ED learned of the marriage of Helen Hunt to William S. Jackson, 22 October 1875. The earliest evidence of a correspondence between them is an envelope (AC), never sent, addressed in the handwriting of about 1868 to Mrs. Helen Hunt. That summer she was in Amherst. Another envelope never sent (AC) is addressed, about 1872, to Bethlehem, New Hampshire, where Mrs. Hunt then summered.

After Mrs. Jackson returned the letter above, ED must have written her again, as the following letter (HCL) from Helen Jackson, dated Colorado Springs, 20 March 1876 (L 444a), indicates.