u have
read number one, for fear I should spoil its effect. When done--about
Wednesday or Thursday, please God--I will send it in two days' posts,
seven letters each day. If you have it set at once (I am afraid you
couldn't read it, otherwise than in print) I know you will impress on B.
& E. the necessity of the closest secrecy. The very name getting out,
would be ruinous. The points for illustration, and the enormous care
required, make me excessively anxious. The man for Dombey, if Browne
could see him, the class man to a T, is Sir A---- E----, of D----'s.
Great pains will be necessary with Miss Tox. The Toodle family should
not be too much caricatured, because of Polly. I should like Browne to
think of Susan Nipper, who will not be wanted in the first number. After
the second number, they will all be nine or ten years older, but this
will not involve much change in the characters, except in the children
and Miss Nipper. What a brilliant thing to be telling you all these
names so familiarly, when you know nothing about 'em! I quite enjoy it.
By the bye, I hope you may like the introduction of Solomon Gills.[121]
I think he lives in a good sort of house. . . . One word more. What do you
think, as a name for the Christmas book, of THE BATTLE OF LIFE? It is
not a name I have conned at all, but has just occurred to me in
connection with that foggy idea. If I can see my way, I think I will
take it next, and clear it off. If you knew how it hangs about me, I am
sure you would say so too. It would be an immense relief to have it
done, and nothing standing in the way of _Dombey_."

Within the time left for it the opening number was done, but two little
incidents preceded still the trip to Chamounix. The first was a visit
from Hallam to Mr. Haldimand. "Heavens! how Hallam did talk yesterday! I
don't think I ever saw him so tremendous. Very good-natured and
pleasant, in his way, but Good Heavens! how he did talk. That famous day
you and I remember was nothing to it. His son was with him, and his
daughter (who has an impediment in her speech, as if nature were
determined to balance that faculty in the family), and his niece, a
pretty woman, the wife of a clergyman and a friend of Thackeray's. It
strikes me that she must be 'the little woman' he proposed to take us to
drink tea with, once, in Golden-square. Don't you remember? His great
favourite? She is quite a charming person anyhow." I hope to be pardoned
for preserving an opi