best love, and truest and most enduring regard, ever, my dear
Fields,

Your most affectionate.

. . . I hope you will receive by Saturday's Cunard a case containing:

1. A trifling supply of the pen-knibs that suited your hand.

2. A do. of unfailing medicine for cockroaches.

3. Mrs. Gamp, for ----.

The case is addressed to you at Bleecker Street, New York. If it should
be delayed for the knibs (or nibs) promised to-morrow, and should be too
late for the Cunard packet, it will in that case come by the next
following Inman steamer.

Everything here looks lovely, and I find it (you will be surprised to
hear) really a pretty place! I have seen "No Thoroughfare" twice.
Excellent things in it, but it drags to my thinking. It is, however, a
great success in the country, and is now getting up with great force in
Paris. Fechter is ill, and was ordered off to Brighton yesterday. Wills
is ill too, and banished into Sussex for perfect rest. Otherwise, thank
God, I find everything well and thriving. You and my dear Mrs. Fields
are constantly in my mind. Procter greatly better.

[Sidenote: Mr. Fechter.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Friday, 22nd May, 1868._

MY DEAR FECHTER,

I have an idea about the bedroom act, which I should certainly have
suggested if I had been at our "repetitions" here.[91] I want it done _to
the sound of the Waterfall_. I want the sound of the Waterfall louder
and softer as the wind rises and falls, to be spoken through--like the
music. I want the Waterfall _listened to when spoken of, and not looked
out at_. The mystery and gloom of the scene would be greatly helped by
this, and it would be new and picturesquely fanciful.

I am very anxious to hear from you how the piece seems to go,[92] and how
the artists, who are to act it, seem to understand their parts. Pray
tell me, too, when you write, how you found Madame Fechter, and give all
our loves to all.

Ever heartily yours.

[Sidenote: Mrs. James T. Fields.]

GAD'S HILL, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_25th May, 1868._

MY DEAR MRS. FIELDS,

As you ask me about the dogs, I begin with them. When I came down first,
I came to Gravesend, five miles off. The two Newfoundland dogs, coming
to meet