"I have not written for an hour. I have been thinking, thinking, thinking, and I should have gone on thinking, just as if I was in a waking trance, if it had not been for my father talking in his sleep. 'Nansie, Nansie!' he called, and I went in to him, but he was fast asleep, and his forehead was quite damp. I wiped it softly, but it did not wake him, and he kept on murmuring my name and yours, and calling on the angels to guard us. Dear father! we have not been a great deal together, but he loves me truly, and I think he is reproaching himself for not having been with me more. I could not love him more than I do, but I might have known him better. He is a good man, Kingsley, and I think if he had been rich he would have made a name in the world. There! I have written 'if he had been rich.' To be happy it is not necessary to be rich, is it, dear? Father says not. That is when he is awake. What did he mean by saying in his sleep: 'Money is a blessing and a curse?' Well, yes, I can understand it. It depends upon how it is used. Oh, Kingsley, I hope your father is not very rich. By my father's side was his favorite book, 'William Browne.' I took it away to my room. Before I go to bed I will put it back, for it is like meat and wine to him. More precious than those, I am sure. What are you doing at this very moment, Kingsley?
"There again. I have been in dreamland for an hour and more. And then, waking up, I read a little of 'William Browne', and took my pen in my hand to go on writing, but I did not know what to say. Kingsley, dear, the errand you have gone upon haunts me. So much do I fear that I hardly know what to think. Even my favorite saying that father does not consider wisdom, 'Everything will come right,' does not comfort me somehow. I don't know why, except it is that we are not together. Suspense is dreadful, is it not, dear? And just now everything seems in suspense. Oh, hark! The nightingale! It is an omen of joy and gladness. Thank God for all sweet sounds, for all that is sweet and good--and the world is full of sweetness and gladness. And I was reading of it in 'William Browne:'
"'But the nightingale i' th' dark Singing, woke the mountain lark; She records her love. The sun hath not with his beams Gilded yet our crystal streams, Rising from the sea; Mists do crown the mountain-tops, And each pretty myrtle drops; 'Tis but newly day.'