This very night I will
pray as you wish me. May the Almighty hear me compassionately! and I
humbly hope he will, for you will strengthen my polluted petitions
with your own pure requests. All is bustle and confusion round me,
the ladies pressing with their sums and their lessons . . . If you
love me, _do, do, do_ come on Friday: I shall watch and wait for you,
and if you disappoint me I shall weep. I wish you could know the
thrill of delight which I experienced, when, as I stood at the dining-
room window, I saw ---, as he whirled past, toss your little packet
over the wall."
Huddersfield market-day was still the great period for events at Roe
Head. Then girls, running round the corner of the house and peeping
between tree-stems, and up a shadowy lane, could catch a glimpse of a
father or brother driving to market in his gig; might, perhaps, exchange
a wave of the hand; or see, as Charlotte Bronte did from the window, a
white packet tossed over the avail by come swift strong motion of an arm,
the rest of the traveller's body unseen.
"Weary with a day's hard work . . . I am sitting down to write a few
lines to my dear E. Excuse me if I say nothing but nonsense, for my mind
is exhausted and dispirited. It is a stormy evening, and the wind is
uttering a continual moaning sound, that makes me feel very melancholy.
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