(-- 1823). My dear Mrs. Allsop, Indeed, indeed you have sadly misunderstood my last hurried note. So over and over again has Mr. Allsop been assured that every invitation to him included you, so often has he been asked to consider one meant for both, that in a few lines scrawled in the dark, with a distracting, quick, thick, and noisy beating as of a distant forge-hammer in my head, and, lastly, written, not so much under any expectation of seeing him (in fact for _Christmas_-day I had none), as from a nervous jealousy of any customary mark of respect and affection being omitted, the ceremony of EXPRESSING your name did not occur to me. But the blame, whatever it be, lies with me, wholly, exclusively on me; for on asking _Mr._ Gillman whether an invitation had been sent to you, he replied by asking me if I had not spoken, and on my saying it was now too late, he still desired me to write, his words being,--"For though Allsop must know how glad we always are to see him, yet still, as far as it is a mark of respect, it is his due." Accordingly I wrote. But after the letter had been sent to the post, on going to Mrs. Gillman to learn how she was, and saying that I had just scrawled a note in the dark in order not to miss the post, _she_ expressed her disapprobation as nearly as I can remember in these words:--"I do not think a mere ceremony any mark of respect to intimate friends. How, in such weather as this, and short days, can it be supposed that Mrs. Allsop could either leave the children or take them? But to expect Mr. Allsop to dine away from his family at this time is what I would not even appear to do, for I should think it very wrong if he did." I was vexed, and could only reply,--"This comes of doing things of a hurry. However, Allsop knows me too well to attribute to me any other feeling or purpose than the real ones." I give you my word and honour, my dear madame, that these were, to the best of my recollection, the very words; but I am quite CERTAIN that they contain the same substance. And for this reason, knowing how it would vex and fret on her spirits that you had been offended, and (if the letter of itself without any interpretation derived from the character or known sentiments of the writer were to decide it), justly offended, I have not shown her your note, nor mentioned the circumstance to her; for this sad accident has pulled her down sadly, coming too in conjunction with the distressful state of my health and spirits; for such is my state at present, that though I would myself have run any hazard to have spent to-morrow with Miss Southey, my own Sara's friend and twin-sister, and with Miss Wordsworth at Monkhouse's, in Gloster-place; yet Mr. Gillman has both dissuaded and forbidden me as my medical adviser. I trust, therefore, that finding Mrs. Gillman _more_ than _blameless_, and that in me the blame was in the judgment and not in the _intention_, you will think no