o your dressing-room, with
"Mr. G. S. Hancock Muggridge, United States," upon it. But Paris looks
coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being able to shake
your hand I shake my own head dolefully, which is but poor satisfaction.

My love to Mrs. Macready. I will swear to the death that it is truly
hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for nothing else, and to you,
my dear Macready, I am ever a devoted friend.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Charles Dickens.]

HOTEL BRISTOL, PARIS, _Thursday Night, Nov. 28th, 1844._

MY DEAREST KATE,

With an intolerable pen and no ink, I am going to write a few lines to
you to report progress.

I got to Strasburg on Monday night, intending to go down the Rhine. But
the weather being foggy, and the season quite over, they could not
insure me getting on for certain beyond Mayence, or our not being
detained by unpropitious weather. Therefore I resolved (the malle poste
being full) to take the diligence hither next day in the afternoon. I
arrived here at half-past five to-night, after fifty hours of it in a
French coach. I was so beastly dirty when I got to this house, that I
had quite lost all sense of my identity, and if anybody had said, "Are
you Charles Dickens?" I should have unblushingly answered, "No; I never
heard of him." A good wash, and a good dress, and a good dinner have
revived me, however; and I can report of this house, concerning which
the brave was so anxious when we were here before, that it is the best I
ever was in. My little apartment, consisting of three rooms and other
conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness. You never saw such
a charming little baby-house. It is infinitely smaller than those first
rooms we had at Meurice's, but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and
quietude, exceeds anything I ever met with at an inn.

The moment I arrived here, I enquired, of course, after Macready. They
said the English theatre had not begun yet, that they thought he was at
Meurice's, where they knew some members of the company to be. I
instantly despatched the porter with a note to say that if he were
there, I would come round and hug him, as soon as I was clean. They
referred the porter to the Hotel Brighton. He came back and told me that
the answer there was: "M. Macready's rooms were engaged, but he had not
arrived. He was expected to-night!" If we meet to-night, I will add a
postscript. Wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road betwee