Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/152

136 in her letters. She said in one of them, not doubting his interest to be as great as hers:—

You will want to be told over and over again that our little Hercules is quite recovered.

Besides looking at me, there are three other things which delight her: to ride in a coach, to look at a scarlet waistcoat, and hear loud music. Yesterday at the fête she enjoyed the two latter; but, to honour J. J. Rousseau, I intend to give her a sash, the first she has ever had round her

In a second she writes:—

As the devout go on pilgrimage to places once sanctified by the presence of a departed saint, so she visited alone the haunts of the early days of their love, living over again the incidents which had made them sacred. "My imagination," she wrote to him, " chooses to ramble back to the barrier with you, or to see you coming to meet me and my basket of grapes. With what pleasure do I recollect your looks and words, when I have been sitting on the window, regarding the waving corn." She begged him to bring back his "barrier face," as she thus fondly recalled their interviews at the barrier. She told him of a night passed at Saint Germains, in the very room which had once been theirs, and, glowing with these recollections, she warned him that, if he should return changed in aught, she would fly from him to cherish remembrances which must be ever dear to her.