that was good and worthy of admiration in foreign lands and peoples. He
had a soft heart, too, and was always ready to help those who asked for
aid."

Next is introduced the prototype of Mr. Pickwick in a few touches:--

"There was an old family friend living at Richmond, named John Foster,
_not Forster_, who was quite a character, especially in his personal
appearance; it occurred to my father to introduce him to Dickens who had
just commenced the Pickwick Papers. Accordingly, they were invited to
meet one another at dinner, and, from this copy, Dickens turned out
Pickwick.

"The trial in Pickwick was not originally written as it is given to the
public. The number was just coming out and in the hands of "the reader"
(I believe John Forster was my father's reader at that time, and had been
educated for the Bar), when the following occurred: Dickens was going to
dine that evening at my father's house; they were waiting for dinner to
be announced, when a messenger came in a great hurry (I think it must
have been from the reader) to say that Dickens was wrong on a point of
law, and that something must be done at once as the number was on the eve
of publication, and the printers were waiting. They rang the bell,
ordered dinner to be put back, and placed pen and paper before Dickens
who set to work at once and re-wrote part of the trial, there and then;
it was given to the messenger waiting in the hall, and Dickens sat down
to dinner with a comfortable feeling that the publication had been saved
in time.

"I have given these anecdotes as we remember hearing them spoken about in
our home. I can picture the last one so well, the rapidity with which it
was done, the young author, my parents, and the pretty home in which it
took place.

"My father's marriage was a romantic one. Visiting at Hitchin, he fell
in love with his next door neighbour, a very pretty little Quakeress,
dressed in the Quaker fashion of those days; her father was a very strict
Friend, and was made very uneasy at the attentions of this London lover;
but Mary was bright and vivacious, and encouraged him, and many were the
interviews contrived by the young couple. Their rooms were on the same
floor, though in different houses; my father, behind a piece of
furniture, bored a hole through the dividing wall, and the lovers slipped
notes backwards and forwards by this means. I am not aware that the
simple-hearted parents ever found it out.

"But, at