y bad correspondent, I fear, but
I hope you won't leave off writing to me on that account. I
got the little book safe, and will do my best about putting
my name in, if I can only manage to remember what day my
birthday is--but one forgets these things so easily.

Somebody told me (a little bird, I suppose) that you had
been having better photographs done of yourselves. If so, I
hope you will let me buy copies. Fanny will pay you for
them. But, oh Maggie, how _can_ you ask for a better
one of me than the one I sent! It is one of the best ever
done! Such grace, such dignity, such benevolence, such--as a
great secret (please don't repeat it) the _Queen_ sent
to ask for a copy of it, but as it is against my rule to
give in such a case, I was obliged to answer--

"Mr. Dodgson presents his compliments to her Majesty, and
regrets to say that his rule is never to give his photograph
except to _young_ ladies." I am told she was annoyed
about it, and said, "I'm not so old as all that comes to!"
and one doesn't like to annoy Queens; but really I couldn't
help it, you know.

I will conclude this chapter with some reminiscences of Lewis Carroll,
which have been kindly sent me by an old child-friend of his, Mrs.
Maitland, daughter of the late Rev. E.A. Litton, Rector of Naunton,
and formerly Fellow of Oriel College and Vice-Principal of Saint
Edmund's Hall:--

To my mind Oxford will be never quite the same again now
that so many of the dear old friends of one's childhood have
"gone over to the great majority."

Often, in the twilight, when the flickering firelight danced
on the old wainscotted wall, have we--father and I--chatted
over the old Oxford days and friends, and the merry times we
all had together in Long Wall Street. I was a nervous, thin,
remarkably ugly child then, and for some years I was left
almost entirely to the care of Mary Pearson, my own
particular attendant. I first remember Mr. Dodgson when I
was about seven years old, and from that time until we went
to live in Gloucestershire he was one of my most delightful
friends.

I shall never forget how Mr. Dodgson and I sat once under a
dear old tree in the Botanical Gardens, and how he told me,
for the first time, Hans Andersen's story of the "Ugly
Duckling." I cannot explain the charm of Mr. Dodgson's way
of tel