I received both your letters at once, and I perceive, by your anxiety in the second, concerning the fate of the other, that when imagination takes the lead of reason, the latter is not always in haste to follow, but suffers her, sometimes, to proceed alone. Did you suppose, when you reached Sion, that the post waited only for your letter, that it would be delivered to me the instant of his arrival here, and that my answer would be favoured with equal dispatch? No, no, my good friend, things do not always go on so swimmingly. Your two epistles came both together; because the post happened not to set out till after he had received the second. It requires some time to distribute the letters; my agent has not always an immediate opportunity of meeting me alone, and the post from hence does not return the day after his arrival: so that, all things calculated, it must be at least a week before we can receive an answer one from the other. This I have explained to you with design, once for all, to satisfy your impatience. Whilst you are exclaiming against fortune and my negligence, you see that I have been busied in obtaining the information necessary to insure our correspondence, and prevent your anxiety. Which of us hath been best employed, I leave to your own decision. Let us, my dear friend, talk no more of pain; rather partake the joy I feel at the return of my kind father, after a tedious absence of eight months. He arrived on Thursday evening, since which happy moment I have thought of nobody else. [7] O thou, whom, next to the Author of my being, I love more than all the world! why must thy letters, thy complainings affect my soul, and interrupt the first transports of a reunited happy family? You expect to monopolize my whole attention. But tell me, could you love a girl, whose passion for her lover could extinguish all affection for her parents? Would you, because you are uneasy, have me insensible to the endearments of a kind father? No, my worthy friend, you must not imbitter my innocent joy by your unjust reproaches. You, who have so much sensibility, can surely conceive the sacred pleasures of being prest to the throbbing heart of a tender parent. Do you think that in those delightful moments it is possible to divide one’s affection? _Sol che son figlia io mi rammento adesso._ Yet you are not to imagine I can forget you. Do we ever forget what we really love? No, the more lively impressions of a moment have no power to efface the other. I was not unaffected with your departure hence, and shall not be displeased to see you return. But----be patient like me, because you must, without asking any other reason. Be assured that I will recall you as soon as it is in my power; and remember, that those who complain loudest of absence, do not always suffer most. Letter XXI. To Eloisa.