Give me the credit of being conscious of it, Beloved: postscripts I never _do_ write. I am glad you noticed it. If I find anything left out I start another letter: _this_ is that other letter: it goes into the same envelope merely for company, and signs itself yours in all state. LETTER LI. Dearest: It was so nice and comedy to see the Mother-Aunt this morning importantly opening a letter from you all to herself with the pleasure quite unmixed by any inclosure for me, or any other letter in the house _to_ me so far as she was aware. I listened to you with new ears, discovering that you write quite beautifully in the style which I never get from you. Don't, because I admire you in your more formal form, alter in your style to me. I prefer you much, for my own part, formless: and feel nearer to your heart in an unfinished sentence than in one that is perfectly balanced. Still I want you to know that your cordial warmed her dear old heart and makes her not think now that she has let me see too much of you. She was just beginning to worry herself jealously into that belief the last two days: and Arthur's taking to you helped to the same end. Very well; I seem to understand everybody's oddities now,--having made a complete study of yours. Best Beloved, I have your little letter lying close, and feel dumb when I try to answer. You with your few words make me feel a small thing with all my unpenned rabble about me. Only you do know so very well that I love you better than I can ever write. This is my first letter of the new year: will our letter-writing go on all this year, or will it, as we dearly dream, die a divine death somewhere before autumn? In any case, I am, dearest, your most happy and loving. LETTER LII. My Dearest: Arthur and the friend went off together yesterday. I am glad the latter stayed just long enough after you left for me to have leisure to find him out human. Here is the whole story: he came and unbosomed to me three days ago: and he said nothing about not telling, so I tell you. As water goes from a duck's back, so go all things worth hearing from me to you. Arthur had said to him, "Come down for a week," and he had answered, "Can't, because of clothes!" explaining that beyond evening-dress he had only those he stood in. "Well," said Arthur, "stand in them, then; you look all right." "The question is," said his friend, "can I sit down?" However, he came; and was appalled to find that a man unpacked his trunk, and would in all probability be carrying away his clothes each night to brush them. He, conscious of interiors, a lining hanging in rags, and even a patching somewhere, had not the heart to let his one and only day-jacket go down to the servants' hall to be sniffed over: and so every evening when he dressed for dinner he hid his jacket laboriously under the permanent layers of a linen wardrobe which stood in his room.