before the close of
the following month he and his wife were in the lodgings at Chalk they
had occupied after their marriage. Early in March there is a letter from
him accounting for the failure of a promise to call on me because of "a
crew of house-agents and attorneys" through whom he had nearly missed
his conveyance to Chalk, and been made "more than half wild besides."
This was his last letter from Furnival's Inn. In that same month he went
to 48, Doughty Street; and in his first letter to me from that address,
dated at the close of the month, there is this passage: "We only called
upon you a second time in the hope of getting you to dine with us, and
were much disappointed not to find you. I have delayed writing a reply
to your note, meaning to call upon you. I have been so much engaged,
however, in the pleasant occupation of 'moving' that I have not had
time; and I am obliged at last to write and say that I have been long
engaged to the _Pickwick_ publishers to a dinner in honor of that hero
which comes off to-morrow. I am consequently unable to accept your kind
invite, which I frankly own I should have liked much better."

That Saturday's celebration of his twelfth number, the anniversary of
the birth of _Pickwick_, preceded by but a few weeks a personal sorrow
which profoundly moved him. His wife's next younger sister, Mary, who
lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more than by graces of
person had made herself the ideal of his life, died with a terrible
suddenness that for the time completely bore him down.[11] His grief and
suffering were intense, and affected him, as will be seen, through many
after-years. The publication of _Pickwick_ was interrupted for two
months, the effort of writing it not being possible to him. He moved for
change of scene to Hampstead, and here, at the close of May, I visited
him, and became first his guest. More than ordinarily susceptible at the
moment to all kindliest impressions, his heart opened itself to mine. I
left him as much his friend, and as entirely in his confidence, as if I
had known him for years. Nor had many weeks passed before he addressed
to me from Doughty Street words which it is my sorrowful pride to
remember have had literal fulfillment: "I look back with unmingled
pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of
our attachment. It shall go hard, I hope, ere anything but Death impairs
the toughness of a bond now so firmly rive