If I don't at once answer (for instance) such a letter as you sent me, I must be a beggar....
May God bless you both, my very dear friends! My husband bids me remember him to you in cordial regard.

I long to see you, and to hear (first) that you are well.
Dearest Mrs.Martin's ever attached BA.
* * * * * _To Mrs.Martin_ 13 Dorset Street: Tuesday, [October 1855].
My dearest Mrs.Martin,--I can't go without writing to you, but I am ground down with last things to do on last days, and it must be a word only.

Dearest friend, I have waited morning after morning for a clear half-hour, because I didn't like to do your bidding and write briefly, though now, after all, I am reduced to it.

We leave England to-morrow, and shall sleep (D.V.) at 102 _Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St.Germain, Paris_,--I am afraid in a scarcely convenient apartment, which a zealous friend, in spite of our own expressed opinion, secured for us for the term of six months, because of certain yellow satin furniture which only she could consider 'worthy of us.' We shall probably have to dress on the staircase, but what matter?
There's the yellow satin to fall back upon.
If the rooms are not tenable, we must underlet them, or try....
One of the pleasantest things which has happened to us here is the coming down on us of the Laureate, who, being in London for three or four days from the Isle of Wight, spent two of them with us, dined with us, smoked with us, opened his heart to us (and the second bottle of port), and ended by reading 'Maud' through from end to end, and going away at half-past two in the morning.

If I had had a heart to spare, certainly he would have won mine.