have a line to let you know that it is all right here, and that the
croakers were simply ridiculous. I began last night. A charming
audience, no dissatisfaction whatever at the raised prices, nothing
missed or lost, cheers at the end of the _Carol_, and rounds upon rounds
of applause all through. All the foremost men and their families had
taken tickets for the series of four. A small place to read in. L300 in
it." It will be no violation of the rule of avoiding private detail if
the very interesting close of this letter is given. Its anecdote of
President Lincoln was repeatedly told by Dickens after his return, and I
am under no necessity to withhold from it the authority of Mr. Sumner's
name. "I am going to-morrow to see the President, who has sent to me
twice. I dined with Charles Sumner last Sunday, against my rule; and as
I had stipulated for no party, Mr. Secretary Stanton was the only other
guest, besides his own secretary. Stanton is a man with a very
remarkable memory, and extraordinarily familiar with my books. . . . He and
Sumner having been the first two public men at the dying President's
bedside, and having remained with him until he breathed his last, we
fell into a very interesting conversation after dinner, when, each of
them giving his own narrative separately, the usual discrepancies about
details of time were observable. Then Mr. Stanton told me a curious
little story which will form the remainder of this short letter.

"On the afternoon of the day on which the President was shot, there was
a cabinet council at which he presided. Mr. Stanton, being at the time
commander-in-chief of the Northern troops that were concentrated about
here, arrived rather late. Indeed they were waiting for him, and on his
entering the room, the President broke off in something he was saying,
and remarked: 'Let us proceed to business, gentlemen.' Mr. Stanton then
noticed, with great surprise, that the President sat with an air of
dignity in his chair instead of lolling about it in the most ungainly
attitudes, as his invariable custom was; and that instead of telling
irrelevant or questionable stories, he was grave and calm, and quite a
different man. Mr. Stanton, on leaving the council with the
Attorney-General, said to him, 'That is the most satisfactory cabinet
meeting I have attended for many a long day! What an extraordinary
change in Mr. Lincoln!' The Attorney-General replied, 'We all saw it,
before you came in. While