any are lost on the way.

Reading Station, _April_ 13, 1878.

My dear Gertrude,--As I have to wait here for half an
hour, I have been studying Bradshaw (most things, you know,
ought to be studied: even a trunk is studded with nails),
and the result is that it seems I could come, any day next
week, to Winckfield, so as to arrive there about one; and
that, by leaving Winckfield again about half-past six, I
could reach Guildford again for dinner. The next question
is, _How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick?_ Now
do not deceive me, you wretched child! If it is more than a
hundred miles, I can't come to see you, and there is no use
to talk about it. If it is less, the next question is,
_How much less?_ These are serious questions, and you
must be as serious as a judge in answering them. There
mustn't be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink
(perhaps you'll say, "There can't be a _wink_ in
_ink_: but there _may_ be _ink_ in a
_wink_"--but this is trifling; you mustn't make jokes
like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to
Guildford and answer these two questions. You might as well
tell me at the same time whether you are still living at
Rotherwick--and whether you are at home--and whether you get
my letter--and whether you're still a child, or a grown-up
person--and whether you're going to the seaside next
summer--and anything else (except the alphabet and the
multiplication table) that you happen to know. I send you
10,000,000 kisses, and remain.

Your loving friend,

C. L. Dodgson.

The Chestnuts, Guildford, _April_ 19, 1878.

My dear Gertrude,--I'm afraid it's "no go"--I've had such a
bad cold all the week that I've hardly been out for some
days, and I don't think it would be wise to try the
expedition this time, and I leave here on Tuesday. But after
all, what does it signify? Perhaps there are ten or twenty
gentlemen, all living within a few miles of Rotherwick, and
any one of them would do just as well! When a little girl is
hoping to take a plum off a dish, and finds that she can't
have that one, because it's bad or unripe, what does she do?
Is she sorry, or disappointed? Not a bit! She just takes
another instead, and grins from one little ear to the other
as she puts it to her lips! This is a little fable to