How good you are, and safe. Your letter calmed and comforted me. Panic! no other word describes my condition at four o’clock this morning after a sleepless night. Servants’ gossip was at the bottom of it. I have always wished for a dumb maid, but Stevens’ tongue is hung on vibrating wires, never still. There _was_ a man, it seems now he was a suitor of cook’s! He _did_ ask questions, but chiefly as to her hours off duty, whether she was already “walking out,” an expression for an engagement on probation, I understand. He was an aspirant. I cannot write you a proper letter, my bad night has turned me into a wreck, a “beautiful ruin” as you would say. No, you wouldn’t, you are too polite. You must take it then that all is well; except that your choice has fallen upon a woman easily unnerved. Was I so foolish after all? James is capable of any blackguardism, he would hate that I should be happy with you. He can no longer excuse his conduct to me, or my resentment of it on the plea that I am unlike other women. I know his mind so well! “Women of genius have no sex,” he said among other things to account for the failure of our married life. He can say so no longer. “Women of genius have no sex!” _It isn’t true._ Do you see me reddening as I write it? What about that little house in Westminster? Have you written to all the agents? Are you searching? Sunday night I was so happy. One large room there must be. Colour prints on the walls and chintz on the big sofas, my Staffordshire everywhere, a shrine somewhere, central place for the musicians; cushions of all shades of roses, some a pale green. I can’t _see_ the carpets or curtains yet. I incline to dark green for both. No, I am not frivolous, only emotional. I think I shall alter when we are together, begin to develop and grow uniform in the hothouse of your love, under the forcing glass of your great regard. It is into that house, under that glass I want to creep, to be warmed through, to blossom. Picture me then as no longer unhappy or distressed, although all day I have neither worked nor played. Your letter healed me; take thanks for it therefore and come down Saturday as usual, with a plan of the house that is to be. (By the way, I _must_ have dog stoves.) In a few days now I, or you, will tell my father and stepmother. The days crawl, each one emptier than the other, until the one that brings you. _Arrivederci_. She sent it, but not the old ones back. She wanted to read them again, it would be an occupation for the evening. She would place them in order, together with his answers. She saw a story there. “The Love Tale of a Woman of Genius.” After all, both she and Gabriel were of sufficient interest for the world to wish to read about them. (It was not until a few days later, by the way, that the title was altered, others tried, that the disingenuous diary began, the MS. started.)